Category Archives: US Military

Top US general to face heated questions in Congress after Woodward revelations

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Mark Milley poised for tense cross-examination after book said he took steps to prevent Trump from starting a war

The top US general will appear before Congress on Tuesday in what is expected to be the most heated cross-examination of a senior US military officer in over a decade.

The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, can expect a hostile interrogation from Republicans on the Senate armed services committee after accounts in a recent book that he carried out acts of insubordination to prevent Donald Trump from starting a war as a diversion from his election defeat last year.

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New York may use national guard to replace unvaccinated health workers

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The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, is considering using the national guard and out-of-state medical workers to fill hospital staffing shortages, as tens of thousands of workers are unlikely to meet a Monday deadline for mandated Covid-19 vaccination.

Related: Uncontrolled Spread review: Trump’s first FDA chief on the Covid disaster

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Biden administration to reopen migrant detention camp near Guantánamo Bay prison

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Immigration authorities seek bids for contractors to run migrant operations center on naval base

The Biden administration is preparing to reopen a migrant detention camp on Guantánamo Bay in the wake of a surge of migrants and asylum seekers on the southern border.

Related: How thousands of Haitian migrants ended up at the Texas border

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Mark Milley, US general who stood up to Trump, founders over Kabul strike

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Civilian deaths in US drone strike deal blow to credibility of chairman of the joint chiefs of staff when he needs it most

Three days after a US drone obliterated a car in a Kabul street, General Mark Milley, shrugged off reports of civilian casualties, insisting it was a “righteous strike”.

On Friday that word came back to haunt America’s top general when the Pentagon was forced to admit that all 10 dead had been civilians, seven of them children. The drone had hit the wrong white Toyota Corolla.

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‘Tragic mistake’: Pentagon admits Kabul strike killed 10 civilians – video

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A US drone strike in Kabul last month killed as many as 10 civilians, including up to seven children, Gen Frank McKenzie, the head of Central Command, told reporters on Friday. Senior officers had said the 29 August strike which took place as foreign forces completed the last stages of their withdrawal from Afghanistan targeted an Islamic States suicide bomber who posed an imminent threat. 'At the time of the strike, I was confident that the strike had averted an imminent threat to our forces at the airport,' McKenzie said. 'Our investigation now concludes that the strike was a tragic mistake.'

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US admits Kabul strike killed 10 civilians and not Islamic State militants

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Gen Kenneth McKenzie says ‘it was a mistake’ and that it was unlikely those who died posed a direct threat to US forces

A US drone strike in Afghanistan last month killed 10 civilians – including seven children – and not an Islamic State extremist as first claimed, the Pentagon has admitted.

In a briefing on Friday, the commander of US Central Command, Gen Kenneth McKenzie, said he now believes it was unlikely that those who died were Islamic State militants or posed a direct threat to US forces at Kabul’s airport.

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China warns US-UK-Australia pact could ‘hurt own interests’

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Aukus described as ‘exclusionary’ amid French anger at scrapping of $90bn submarine deal with Australia

China has told the US, the UK and Australia to abandon their “cold war” mentality or risk harming their own interests after the three countries unveiled a new defence cooperation pact.

The trilateral security partnership, named Aukus, was announced on Thursday by the three nations’ leaders via video link, and will include an 18-month plan to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.

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Joe Biden has ‘great confidence’ in top general Milley after Trump revelation

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The chair of the joint chiefs of staff sought to prevent the former president from ‘going rogue’, according to new Woodward book

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Joe Biden threw his weight behind the top US military officer on Wednesday, saying he had “great confidence” in the general who, according to a new book, took steps to prevent the outgoing Republican president Donald Trump from “going rogue” and launching a nuclear war or an attack on China.

Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, also defended phone calls he made to his Chinese military counterpart in the tumultuous final months of Trump’s presidency, signaling that the hitherto secret conversations were in keeping with his duties.

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Top general feared Trump would launch nuclear war, Woodward book reports

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General Milley worried about Trump’s ‘trigger point’ after the election and monitored him to prevent catastrophic military strike

Before and after the assault on the US Capitol on 6 January, the most senior US general took steps to prevent Donald Trump from “going rogue” and launching a nuclear war or an attack on China, according to excerpts of an eagerly awaited new book by the Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.

Related: Senate Democrats pitch new voting bill in effort to break filibuster logjam– live

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US drone strike mistakenly targeted Afghan aid worker, investigation finds

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Zemari Ahmadi, who died alongside nine others had no connection to terrorism, a New York Times investigation suggested

The US mistakenly targeted and killed an innocent aid worker for an American company in a drone strike in Afghanistan, the New York Times suggested in an investigation into the country’s final military action of the recently concluded 20-year war.

The victim, the newspaper said, was 43-year-old Zemari Ahmadi, who died with nine members of his family, including seven children, when a missile from a US air force Reaper drone struck his car as he arrived home from work in a residential neighborhood of Kabul.

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Biden asks Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway to quit military academy boards

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White House confirms that 11 Trump appointees were asked to step down – or be fired – including Conway and Spicer

The White House confirmed on Wednesday that 11 Trump appointees to military service academy advisory boards, among them former press secretary Sean Spicer and adviser Kellyanne Conway, were asked to step down – or be fired.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said: “The president’s objective is what any president’s objective is – to ensure you have nominees and people serving on these boards who are qualified to serve on them and who are aligned with your values. And so yes, that was an ask that was made.”

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US airstrikes killed at least 22,000 civilians since 9/11, analysis finds

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Figures based on reported number of US airstrikes highlight the human cost of the 20-year ‘war on terror’

US drone and airstrikes have killed at least 22,000 civilians – and perhaps as many as 48,000 – since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, according to new analysis published by the civilian harm monitoring group Airwars.

The analysis, based on the US military’s own assertion that it has conducted almost 100,000 airstrikes since 2001, represents an attempt to estimate the number of civilian deaths across the multiple conflicts that have comprised aspects of the “war on terror”.

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Some slept, some cried, all were now refugees: inside one of the last Afghan airlifts

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Those on board the cramped military plane weren’t granted a last glimpse of their homeland before the difficult journey ahead, while all knew thousands still waited desperately below

The American marine shouted “push!”. And hundreds of people did, shoving inside the Boeing C-17 military aircraft; tumbling over, then pulling their bodies into tight huddles on the floor to let as many others in as possible.

As the rear door closed and the deafening engines started, lifting the heavy plane off the runway at Kabul’s international airport, people broke down wailing; crying. Now refugees.

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‘It’s possible’: US military chief could work with Taliban on IS counter-terror strikes

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Mark Milley says it's possible the US will seek to coordinate on strikes in Afghanistan, though defence secretary Lloyd Austin remains sceptical

US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said it was “possible” the United States will seek to coordinate with the Taliban on counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan against Islamic State militants or others.

The extent and nature of a US-Taliban relationship, now that the war is over, is one of the key issues to be worked out. US military commanders have coordinated daily with Taliban commanders outside Kabul’s international airport over the past three weeks to facilitate the evacuation of more than 124,000 people, but that was a matter of convenience for both parties.

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Biden sets himself apart by placing Afghanistan blame at predecessors’ feet

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The president appeared indignant and unwilling to concede defeat in a 26-minute speech that marked the close of a 20-year chapter

Victory speeches are easy; conceding defeat is much harder. On Tuesday, Joe Biden tacitly blamed his predecessors for the failure of America’s longest war but implied that, against all odds, one winner had emerged: him.

In a 26-minute speech at the White House, the US president fiercely defended his decision to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan and hailed the mass evacuation from Kabul as a triumph. He scored highly in making the case against forever wars and expressing compassion for US military families.

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Taliban enjoy moment of victory as focus shifts to challenges ahead

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As guards dismantle barricades at airport, leadership holds talks on how the spoils of power will be shared

The Taliban marked the start of their first day in full control of Afghanistan with celebratory gunfire, minutes after the last US plane of soldiers and their ambassador lifted off from Kabul airport, sealing Washington’s humiliating defeat in its longest war.

Twenty years, tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars separated the arrival of the first US troops on Afghan soil after 9/11 and the Taliban’s triumphant restoration in the Afghan capital.

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Rockets fired at Kabul airport as US approaches withdrawal deadline – video

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Several rockets were fired at Kabul airport on Monday, less than 48 hours before the United States is due to complete its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Eyewitnesses said the rockets were launched from a car and were aimed towards the airport on Monday morning. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack

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Biden meets remains of 13 troops killed in Kabul as US promises more strikes

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The White House on Sunday reasserted its promise to capture or kill the perpetrators of the deadly attacks on Kabul airport, as Joe Biden travelled to Delaware for the repatriation of the bodies of the 13 US troops who died.

Related: Pentagon names troops killed in Kabul – some were babies at time of invasion

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Several troops killed in Kabul blast were just babies when US invaded

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Several of the 13 American military personnel killed in the suicide bombing at Kabul airport on Thursday were not even a year old when the US invaded Afghanistan in late 2001.

Related: Afghanistan drone strike targeted Islamic State ‘planner’ in car, US says

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Biden reportedly receiving urgent briefings in White House situation room on explosions at Kabul airport – live

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US Capitol Police officers who were attacked and beaten during the insurrection at the US Congress on January 6 by extremist supporters of Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the former Republican president, allies such as Roger Stone and members of far-right extremist groups.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

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