Category Archives: US Military

Trump ‘wouldn’t have wanted’ second strike on Caribbean boat survivors

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US president says he will look into reports US military was told to conduct follow-up attack on suspected drug vessel

Donald Trump has said he will look into reports that the US military conducted a follow-up strike on a boat in the Caribbean that it believed to be ferrying drugs, killing survivors of an initial missile attack.

The US president also said on Sunday he “wouldn’t have wanted” a second strike on the vessel during the incident on 2 September – the first publicised operation in a series of attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Washington says are aimed at combatting the drug trade.

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Trump invites families of national guard members who were shot to White House

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President plans to honor Sarah Beckstrom, who was fatally shot, as well as Andrew Wolfe, who is in critical condition

Donald Trump said on Sunday that he invited the family of a national guard member fatally shot last week to the White House, adding that he spoke to her parents and they were “devastated”.

US army specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, was killed in a shooting on Wednesday in Washington DC. Her fellow service member, US air force staff Sgt Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains hospitalized in critical condition. Vigils across West Virginia have taken place in their memory.

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Hegseth reportedly plans to cut support to US scouts group for being ‘genderless’

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Scouting America decries accusations by defense secretary that the organization is attacking ‘boy-friendly spaces’

Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America, has said it is “surprised and disappointed” by a report that the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, could sever all military ties to the organization for being “genderless” and failing to “cultivate masculine values”.

In a draft memo to Congress obtained by NPR, Hegseth criticized Scouting America, which began admitting girls in 2018, for purportedly attempting to “attack boy-friendly spaces”.

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US justice department memo about boat strikes diverges from Trump narrative

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Exclusive: Officials frame strikes as self-defense against violence, without naming aggressor, while Trump claims they’re to stop US overdose deaths

The Trump administration is framing its boat strikes against drug cartels in the Caribbean in part as a collective self-defense effort on behalf of US allies in the region, according to three people directly familiar with the administration’s internal legal argument.

The legal analysis rests on a premise – for which there is no immediate public evidence – that the cartels are waging armed violence against the security forces of allies like Mexico, and that the violence is financed by cocaine shipments.

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Mark Kelly: call for troops to disobey illegal orders is ‘non-controversial’

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Senator hits back at Trump administration after Pentagon launches investigation for possible breaches of military law

US senator Mark Kelly said it was “non-controversial” for him and other Democrats to implore military personnel to disobey “illegal orders” from the Trump administration – hitting back at accusations of “serious allegations of misconduct” leveled against him by the Pentagon.

“I said something that was pretty simple and non-controversial – and that was that members of the military should follow the law,” the Arizona Democrat senator, a former US Navy officer and astronaut who flew on four separate space shuttle missions between 2001 and 2011, told MS Now on Monday night.

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US senator slams Republicans’ silence on Trump’s violent threats to Democrats

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Mark Kelly, a veteran and Democrat targeted by Trump over military comments, says he is ‘not going to be intimidated’

Senator Mark Kelly on Sunday urged congressional Republicans to publicly reject Trump’s threats against him and five other Democratic lawmakers who stated that military personnel are not obligated to follow illegal commands.

“We’ve heard very little, basically crickets, from Republicans in the United States Congress about what the president has said about hanging members of Congress,” Kelly, of Arizona, said on CBS’s Face the Nation.

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Sheinbaum again dismisses Trump’s threat of sending troops to Mexico: ‘We do not want intervention’

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Mexico’s president responds to Trump’s latest warning that he could authorize strikes against drug cartels in country

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has again dismissed Donald Trump’s threat of military action against drug cartels inside her country, telling reporters: “It’s not going to happen.”

Sheinbaum made the comments on Tuesday morning in response to the US president’s latest warning that he could authorise strikes in Mexico.

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US attacks another alleged drug boat in Pacific, killing three, as Trump signals possible talks with Maduro

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Strike comes as navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier arrives in Caribbean Sea and president says US may open talks with Venezuelan leader

The United States conducted another attack on an alleged drug trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific on Saturday, killing three people aboard, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” the US Southern Command announced in a post on social media.

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Pentagon’s largest warship enters Latin American waters as US tensions with Venezuela rise

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USS Gerald R Ford’s arrival marks the largest US military presence in the region since the invasion of Panama in 1989

The US navy has announced that the USS Gerald R Ford, regarded as the world’s newest and largest aircraft carrier, has entered the area of responsibility of the US Southern Command, which covers Latin America and the Caribbean.

The deployment of the ship and the strike group it leads – which includes dozens of aircraft and destroyer ships – had been announced nearly three weeks ago, and its arrival marks an escalation in the military buildup between the US and Venezuela.

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US strikes another alleged drug boat bringing death toll from campaign in Latin America to 70

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US strikes have destroyed at least 18 vessels, but Washington has yet to make public any concrete evidence that its targets posed a threat to America

US forces struck another alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean, killing three people, defense secretary Pete Hegseth has said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s controversial campaign to at least 70.

The US began carrying out such strikes – which some experts say amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers – in early September, taking aim at vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.

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Senate blocks Democrats’ bid to check Trump power over Venezuela strikes

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Resolution fails 49-51 with only two Republican senators voting in favor as president increases military buildup

The US Senate on Thursday blocked a Democratic war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to seek congressional approval to launch strikes in Venezuela, allowing the president to remain unchecked in his ability to expand his military campaign against the country.

The 49-51 vote against passing the resolution, mostly along party lines, came a month after a previous effort to stop strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats in international waters similarly failed, 48-51.

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Hegseth announces another deadly US strike on alleged drug boat

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Pentagon secretary says two people killed in attack on boat in eastern Pacific, bringing total killed to 66 in 16 strikes

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced yet another deadly strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, coming the same day an aircraft carrier began heading to the region in a new expansion of military firepower.

The attack Tuesday killed two people aboard the vessel, Hegseth said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s campaign in South American waters up to at least 66 people in at least 16 strikes.

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Sheinbaum denies reports US will send troops to Mexico: ‘It’s not going to happen’

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President says she’s repeatedly rejected such offers from Trump for US to confront Mexico’s powerful drug cartels

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has flatly denied reports that the United States is planning to send troops into Mexico to confront the country’s powerful cartels, noting that she had repeatedly rejected such offers from Donald Trump.

“It’s not going to happen,” Sheinbaum said during her daily morning news conference on Tuesday. “We do not agree with any process of interference or interventionism.”

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Trump threatens to go into Nigeria ‘guns-a-blazing’ over attacks on Christians

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US president says he ordered Pentagon to begin planning for action, without mentioning Muslim persecution

Donald Trump on Saturday said he had ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria as he stepped up his criticism that the government was failing to rein in the persecution of Christians in the west African country.

“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”

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National guard deployment in Washington DC extended until February

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Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth gives approval for troops to remain in US capital past November end, CNN reports

National guard troops sent to the nation’s capital will reportedly remain there through at least February.

The order was set to lapse at the end of November but was extended by Pete Hegseth, who leads the US Department of Defense. As of Wednesday, there are nearly 2,400 national guard troops in Washington DC, according to CNN. The network also notes that their presence costs about $1m daily.

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US military to reduce number of troops in Romania as start of European drawdown

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Army says 2nd Infantry Brigade combat team of 101st Airborne to redeploy to Kentucky ‘without replacement’

The US military is reducing the number of troops it has stationed in Romania, scaling back Nato’s deployment to countries along Europe’s eastern border with Ukraine, US and Romanian officials have announced.

In a statement on Wednesday, the US army said that the 2nd Infantry Brigade combat team of the 101st Airborne division would redeploy to its home-based unit in Kentucky “without replacement” as part of a plan to “ensure a balanced US military force posture”.

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House of Dynamite writer ‘respectfully disagrees’ with Pentagon’s complaints about nuclear missile thriller

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Noah Oppenheim responded to complaints from the Pentagon over the accuracy of the film’s depiction of the US’s defence systems

Warning: contains a spoiler for the plot of House of Dynamite

Noah Oppenheim, the writer of Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear-missile thriller House of Dynamite has responded to complaints from the Pentagon over the accuracy of its depiction of the US’s defence systems, saying he “respectfully disagree[s]”.

In an internal memo dated 16 October obtained by Bloomberg, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said: “The fictional interceptors in the movie miss their target and we understand this is intended to be a compelling part of the drama intended for the entertainment of the audience,” but results from real-world testing “tell a vastly different story.”

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Republican senator calls Trump’s military airstrikes ‘extrajudicial killings’

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Rand Paul’s comments come days after president claimed US lawmakers wouldn’t take issue with Venezuelan strikes

The Trump administration’s military airtrikes against boats off Venezuela’s coast that the White House claims were being used for drug trafficking are “extrajudicial killings”, said Rand Paul, the president’s fellow Republican and US senator from Kentucky.

Paul’s strong comments on the topic came on Sunday during an interview on Republican-friendly Fox News, three days after Donald Trump publicly claimed he “can’t imagine” federal lawmakers would have “any problem” with the strikes when asked about seeking congressional approval for them.

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Pentagon chief announces another US military strike on alleged drug boat in Caribbean

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Pete Hegseth claimed that six ‘narco-terrorists’ onboard craft were killed in night strike in international waters

The US has carried out another military strike against what it claimed was a vessel carrying illegal drugs in the Caribbean, killing six people onboard, the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, said.

In a social media post, Hegseth stated: “The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics.”

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Trump poised to send scores of federal agents to San Francisco

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Newsom calls move ‘right out of the dictator’s handbook’ as agents prepare for key immigration enforcement operation

The Trump administration appeared poised to send dozens of federal agents to the San Francisco Bay Area for a major immigration enforcement operation, prompting condemnation from California leaders.

Details of the deployment were still emerging, but it will reportedly involve more than 100 federal agents, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The agents are reportedly set to begin using the US Coast Guard base in Alameda, a city located across the bay from San Francisco. It remained unclear whether national guard troops would also be involved.

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