Category Archives: US Military

Trump demands Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’ as bombs pound Tehran and Beirut

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US president again calls on Iranian people to overthrow government or face ‘absolutely guaranteed death’

Donald Trump has said only Iran’s “unconditional surrender” will bring an end to the offensive launched seven days ago, as the US and Israel carried out some of the heaviest bombardments so far in the conflict.

“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Friday, when US strategic bombers were in action over Iran and intensive Israeli strikes in Lebanon forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes.

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Ukraine to help US and its allies counter Iranian drones in Middle East, says Zelenskyy

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Ukrainian president orders equipment and expertise to be provided to US in return to diplomatic support against Russia, saying ‘we help to defend from war those who help us’

The United States and its allies in the Middle East are seeking Ukraine’s expertise in countering Iran’s Shahed drones, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

Various countries, including the US, have approached Ukraine for help in defending against the Iranian drones, Zelenskyy said late on Wednesday. He said he has spoken in recent days to the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait about possible cooperation.

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Pentagon releases names of final two soldiers of six killed in Kuwait

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Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzan, 54, and Maj Jeffrey O’Brien, 45, were from California and Iowa

The Pentagon has released the names of the final two of the six soldiers who were killed during a recent drone strike in Kuwait. They were killed on Sunday, the day after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran. Their names were released by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday.

The two soldiers were identified as Chief Warrant Officer Robert Marzan, 54, and Maj Jeffrey O’Brien, 45. They were from Sacramento, California, and Indianola, Iowa, respectively.

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Starmer’s slow start in the war against Iran could leave UK playing catch-up

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Prime minister’s initial refusal to help US could constrain Britain’s ability to protect its nationals in the Gulf and reassure allies

Britain knew that the US was considering attacking Iran from the moment Donald Trump told protesters that “help is coming” in the middle of January. It was obvious to the world that the White House was serious when the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group was sent to the Arabian Sea in late January.

But as Trump gradually built up his “massive armada”, reinforcing it with a second carrier strike group in mid-February, UK deployments were constrained and limited even though there was a recognition that it was likely allies and bases with British soldiers would be attacked in an Iranian retaliation.

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Pete Hegseth says US is ‘investigating’ deadly strike on girls’ school in Iran

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US defense secretary was evasive when asked about the airstrike that Iranian officials say killed at least 165 students

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, offered few details and was evasive when asked about the deadly strike on a girls’ school in Iran, saying only that the US was “investigating” the incident.

Iranian officials say the attack, which happened on Saturday, killed at least 165 students.

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Britain not ruling out future strikes on Iran missile sites, officials indicate

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‘We just don’t know what will happen,’ western officials say, as UK bases prepare for arrival of US heavy bombers

Britain has not ruled out participating in future strikes against Iranian ballistic missile launch sites, officials have indicated.

US heavy bombers are expected to reach UK bases at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands and Fairford in Gloucestershire in the next few days, from where they are expected to attack Iran’s underground “missile cities”.

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UK to allow US to use British bases for defensive strikes against Iran

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Keir Starmer says decision was taken amid increasingly reckless Iranian actions, as Liberal Democrats demand parliamentary vote

The UK has agreed to let the US use British military bases to attack Iranian missile sites, Keir Starmer has said.

The UK has so far not been involved in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, but in a recorded statement on Sunday evening, the prime minister said that Iran’s approach was becoming more reckless and putting British lives at risk, leading to the decision to allow the US to use two of its military bases.

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Trump says Iran leadership agrees to talks after US and Israel strike Tehran

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‘They should have done it sooner, they waited too long,’ says Trump but he doesn’t say when talks would take place

Donald Trump said on Sunday that Iran’s political leadership have agreed to talks, a day after the US and Israel began to target the country’s military and political infrastructure, killing the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several top officials.

“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” Trump told a reporter for the Atlantic magazine on Sunday. “They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.”

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Starmer chairs Cobra meeting after strikes by US and Israel on Iran

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Prime minister calls together emergency committee to decide UK’s response to latest fighting in Middle East

Keir Starmer is chairing a meeting of the UK government’s Cobra emergency committee as Britain decides how to respond to the US-Israeli bombing of Iran, and Tehran’s retaliation against bases in the Gulf.

The UK did not participate in the first wave of strikes early on Saturday but had deployed RAF Typhoons to Qatar to protect the al-Udeid airbase in the country and other allied military facilities in the region.

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Trump’s unprovoked attack on Iran has no mandate – or legal basis

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US president violates UN charter just days into his Board of Peace era, and chooses to take the biggest gamble of his administration

The first war of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace era has begun – an unprovoked attempt at regime change in collaboration with Israel, with no legal foundation, launched in the midst of diplomatic efforts to avert conflict, and with minimal consultation with Congress or the American public.

Trump’s recorded eight-minute address after the first bombs had fallen, made clear that this would be no limited strike aimed at cajoling Tehran into concessions at the negotiating table. He warned that if Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) did not surrender they would be killed, and the country’s armed forces, its missile and navy would be smashed.

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Trump advisers scramble to justify US military intervention in Iran

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Tehran’s ICBMs cannot currently reach the US, experts say, and White House has claimed its nuclear programme has been destroyed

Donald Trump’s likely casus belli for an attack on Iran – which would be the largest US intervention since the Iraq war – is fraught with contradictions, and his top advisers have been left to cover for him as the White House makes the case for intervention.

In his State of the Union address this week, Trump alleged that Iran posed a direct threat to the US and that the country was “working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America”. But that claim has not been backed up with evidence by the White House or the Pentagon, and US intelligence reports from just last year say that it would take Iran 10 years to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the US.

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Democrats outraged at US military’s downing of CBP drone near Mexico border

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Second time in two weeks military used laser to attack what it mistakenly thought was a threat, disrupting air traffic

Democratic members of Congress have expressed astonishment and anger at what they claim is the incompetence of the Trump administration after the US military used a laser on Thursday to shoot down what it thought was a threatening drone on the US-Mexico border in Texas but later turned out to belong to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The apparent confusion between two entities in the US government led to airspace being closed around Fort Hancock, right along the border. It was the second time in two weeks that air traffic was disrupted in the region as a result of a high-energy laser being deployed against drones.

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Texas airspace closed after military reportedly downs US drone on accident

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Federal Aviation Administration bars flights around Fort Hancock after reported use of anti-drone military laser

The Federal Aviation Administration barred flights on Thursday in an area around Fort Hancock, Texas, after congressional aides told Reuters a military laser-based anti-drone system was believed to have accidentally shot down a US government drone.

The FAA and Pentagon did not immediately comment but the FAA cited “special security reasons” in its notice about the restrictions on the airspace near the Mexican border posted on its Notam alert system, shorthand for “Notice to Air Missions”.

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Marco Rubio briefs US lawmakers on Iran as Trump uses State of the Union to threaten nuclear programme

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Secretary of state makes rare briefing to so-called ‘gang of eight’ as US deploys largest force of aircraft and warships to Middle East since 2003

Marco Rubio delivered a rare briefing to top US lawmakers on Iran, just a few hours before Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to say that Tehran would never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

Amid the largest deployment of aircraft and warships to the Middle East since the 2003 buildup to the Iraq war, Trump said he wanted to solve the confrontation with Iran through diplomatic means while claiming that Tehran was seeking to develop ballistic missiles that could reach the US, without providing further details.

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US military leaders meet with Anthropic to argue against Claude safeguards

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Anthropic presents itself as most safety-forward AI firm and Pentagon has threatened penalties if it does not yield

US military leaders including Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, met with executives from the artificial intelligence firm Anthropic on Tuesday to hash out a dispute over what the government will be able to do with the company’s powerful AI model. Hegseth gave Dario Amodei, the Anthropic CEO, until the end of the day on Friday to agree to the department’s terms or face penalties, Axios reported.

Anthropic, which presents itself as the most safety-forward of the leading AI companies, has been mired in weeks of disagreement with the Pentagon over how the military is allowed to use its large language model, Claude. US defense officials have pushed for unfettered access to Claude’s capabilities, while Anthropic has reportedly resisted allowing its product to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems that can use AI to kill people without human input. The Department of Defense (DoD) has integrated Claude into its operations, but has threatened to sever the relationship over what its top brass perceives as roadblocks erected by Anthropic.

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Iran prepares nuclear counterproposal as US considers limited military strikes

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Trump orders massive buildup of naval forces in Middle East, leading to fears of an imminent war

Iran’s foreign minister has said he expects to have a draft counterproposal ready within days after nuclear talks with the US this week, while Donald Trump said he was considering limited military strikes.

The US president has ordered a massive buildup of naval forces in the Middle East, including repositioning aircraft carriers and other warships, leading to fears of an imminent war. But it is not clear if the military movements are intended as an intimidation tactic to put pressure on Iran to make concessions on its nuclear programme.

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US military strike kills three in second alleged drug boat attack this week

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Move brings total number of people killed in US strikes on suspected boats since September to at least 148

The US military launched a strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific on Friday, killing three men in its second strike this week.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” US Southern Command, which oversees operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, said on Twitter/X.

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Trump changed mind on Chagos deal ‘after UK blocked use of Diego Garcia for Iran strikes’

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US president links deal with military strikes against Iran in connection with Tehran’s nuclear ambitions

Donald Trump changed his mind on supporting the Chagos Islands deal because the UK will not permit its airbases to be used for a pre-emptive US strike on Iran, the Guardian has been told.

In his latest change of heart on the deal, the US president said on social media that Keir Starmer was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for continued use by the UK and US of their airbase on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.

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US says 11 people killed in latest strikes on alleged drug boats

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Three boats targeted in eastern Pacific and Caribbean as Trump continues pursuit of alleged ‘narco-terrorists’

US military officials have said American forces launched assaults on three alleged drug-smuggling boats, killing 11 in one of the deadliest days of the Trump administration’s months-long campaign against alleged traffickers.

The military action on Monday brought the number of fatalities caused by US strikes to 145 since September, when Donald Trump called on American armed forces to attack people deemed “narco-terrorists” on small vessels. There have been 42 known strikes in notorious drug-trafficking routes such as the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, according to the Associated Press reported.

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US boards second oil tanker in Indian Ocean after it fled Venezuelan raid

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Pentagon tracked sanctioned Veronica III from Caribbean Sea after it left Venezuela on day Maduro was captured

US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure the president, Nicolás Maduro, before Maduro was apprehended in January during a US military operation.

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