Category Archives: US Military

Pete Hegseth allows troops to carry personal firearms on military bases

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Defense secretary signs memo letting members request permission to carry firearms on military installations

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo on Thursday that would allow military service members to request permission to carry their personal firearms on military installations such as bases, naval yards and recruitment centers, claiming the new policy will allow soldiers and other military personnel to defend themselves in case of an attack.

While the full text of the memo has yet to be made public, it appears to loosen the current policy that allows for personnel to get permission to have their weapons on base on a case-by-case basis, and requires that they are registered with the base’s authorities and stored in a secure device.

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Top US army officer steps down after Hegseth reportedly demanded removal

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Pentagon announces Randy George retiring from role as US army chief of staff, ‘effective immediately’

Randy George, the US army’s top officer, is stepping down from his role after the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, reportedly requested that he retire immediately. The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that George, who had been serving as the army’s 41st chief of staff, was retiring.

“General Randy A George will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately. The Department of War is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement,” Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement shared on social media.

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Hegseth says suspensions lifted for helicopter crews who hovered over Kid Rock home

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Pentagon chief’s remarks come after US army said crews suspended amid investigation into incident in Tennessee

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said the crews of two US army AH-64 Apache helicopters that hovered next to the singer Kid Rock’s swimming pool while he clapped and saluted on Saturday are no longer suspended.

“No punishment. No investigation,” Hegseth wrote on social media. “Carry on, patriots.”

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Iran accuses US of plotting ground assault while publicly seeking talks

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Tehran says it will confront any land attack, as Houthi missiles fired at Israel signal further escalation in region

Iran has warned the US that it is prepared to confront any ground assault, accusing Washington of secretly planning a land attack while publicly seeking talks, as the war that has killed thousands of people and caused the biggest ever disruption to global energy supplies entered its second month.

As efforts to find a negotiated conclusion to hostilities inched forward with a meeting of regional powers in Pakistan, there were signs of further escalation over the weekend as Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis entered the conflict for the first time and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his country was widening its invasion of southern Lebanon.

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Hegseth prays at Pentagon service for ‘overwhelming violence’ against enemies

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Remarks come after defense secretary calls for changes to military’s chaplain corps, which had been ‘watered down’

The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, prayed during a religious service at the Pentagon that there be “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”.

The Christian worship service, held on Wednesday before military and civilian workers at the Pentagon, was Hegseth’s first since the Iran war began, the Associated Press reported.

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Middle East crisis live: Iran launches strikes on US bases in Gulf; oil prices drop after Trump ‘peace plan’ report

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Iran Guards said they fired missiles at Israel and US forces in bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain; crude oil prices fall sharply in early trading

Even as Donald Trump claimed productive negotiations to end the war were ongoing with Tehran, Iran’s relentless bombardment of the Gulf states showed no sign of relenting.

Kuwait and Bahrain were both hit with damaging strikes on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, as the patience of the Gulf states after rebuffing constant attacks for almost a month begun to wear thin.

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Middle East crisis live: Iran launches strikes on US bases in Gulf; oil prices drop after Trump ‘peace plan’ report

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Iran Guards said they fired missiles at Israel and US forces in bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain; crude oil prices fall sharply in early trading

Indonesia is considering cutting the distribution of free student meals from six days a week to five, in a bid to save its budget amid the the Middle East conflict, Reuters reports.

The finance minister, Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, said on Wednesday the measure could save 40tn rupiah ($2.37bn).

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Father of killed US military member disputes Hegseth’s claim he said to ‘finish’ the job in Iran

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Defense secretary had said relatives of service members killed in refueling tanker crash told him ‘do not stop until the job is done’

The father of a US military member killed in the Iran war has contradicted Pete Hegseth’s claim that bereaved families urged him to “finish” the job in the Middle East.

Hegseth, the defense secretary and a former weekend Fox News host, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing on Thursday that he had spoken with relatives of all six service members killed in last week’s refueling tanker crash during a “dignified transfer” of their remains at Delaware’s Dover air force station the night before.

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Denmark reportedly flew blood bags to Greenland in preparation for a US attack

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Amid Trump threats, Copenhagen also sent over explosives intended to blow up runways, according to Danish media

Denmark reportedly readied itself for potential attack from the US in January – flying bags of blood to Greenland and explosives to blow up runways in case of a battle with its former closest ally.

During the tense days when Donald Trump threatened to take over Greenland – a largely autonomous territory that is part of the Danish commonwealth – “the hard way”, Copenhagen was so shaken that it started preparing for US invasion, according to Danish public broadcaster DR.

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West Point analysis warns that strait of Hormuz blockade will strangle US defense industry

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Report shows how minerals critical to defense readiness have seen a ‘near total’ disruption in seaborne trade

The closure of the strait of Hormuz is causing a “paralyzing, real-time problem” for any prospective manufacturing surge in the US defense industrial base, and even for the repair of defense equipment damaged by Iranian attacks, according to analysis published by West Point’s Modern War Institute.

In particular sulphur, a vital upstream input in the extraction of critical minerals including copper and cobalt, has seen a “near total” disruption of seaborne trade in the straits, which makes up half the world’s total shipments, and prices have spiked nearly 25% since the war began, and seen a 165% rise year on year, the report said.

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At least 200 American troops wounded in Iran war, US military says

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Details from US Central Command come as 13 US service members and more than 1,300 Iranians have been killed

At least 200 US troops have been injured in the US-Israeli war on Iran, a US military spokesperson said on Monday.

“Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, approximately 200 US service members have been wounded,” US Central Command spokesperson Cpt Tim Hawkins told the Guardian via email.

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Initiative may be slipping away from US and Israel as Middle East crisis deepens

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There is little sign of imminent regime change in Iran as its blockade of strait of Hormuz shocks global economy

Few doubt that in the first days of the new war in the Middle East, the initiative belonged to the US and its ally Israel. Now it seems less sure, however.

Mohsen Rezaee, a senior officer in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, on Sunday said “the end of the war is in our hands” and called for the withdrawal of Washington’s forces from the Gulf and compensation for all damage caused by the assault.

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US not ready to seek deal to end war with Iran, Donald Trump says

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Tehran wants ceasefire but terms ‘not good enough yet’, US president claims, as both sides launch new waves of strikes

Donald Trump has warned he is not ready to seek a deal to end the US-Israeli offensive against Iran, saying that though he thought Tehran was keen to negotiate a ceasefire, the US would fight on for better terms.

Trump’s comments came as Iran launched fresh missile and drone attacks on countries in the Gulf and on Israel, and Israeli and US warplanes launched new waves of strikes on Iran.

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Trump says US may strike Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub ‘just for fun’

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In comments to NBC News, US presidents also deflates hope of deal with Tehran, saying ‘terms aren’t good enough’

Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States may carry out more strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub “just for fun”, saying that while Tehran appears ready to make a deal to end the conflict, “the terms aren’t good enough yet”.

He said the US strikes had “totally demolished” most of Kharg Island, telling NBC News that “we may hit it a few more times just for fun.”

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Pentagon identifies six US service members killed in aircraft crash over Iraq

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US Central Command says crash followed unspecified incident, and second refueling tanker landed safely in Israel

The names of the six US service members who died when a military refueling aircraft crashed over Iraq on Thursday have been released.

The Pentagon on Saturday identified the crew members as Maj John “Alex” Klinner, 33, of Auburn, Alabama; Capt Ariana Savino, 31, of Covington, Washington; Tech Sgt Ashley Pruitt, 34, of Bardstown, Kentucky; Capt Seth Koval, 38, of Mooresville, Indiana; Capt Curtis Angst, 30, of Wilmington, Ohio; and Tech Sgt Tyler Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio.

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The escalation trap: how the Iran war could become more costly and complex

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Iran is trying to create wedges between Gulf states and the US, but Trump is very comfortable on the ‘escalatory ladder’

• Middle East crisis – live updates

In its current phase, the Israeli-US war against Iran and its proxies has become a proving ground for two competing concepts of military escalation, each of which threatens to become a trap.

On one side, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have failed thus far in their ill-defined and shifting strategic aims. Despite killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and other key leaders in the opening salvo of the campaign, the clerical regime remains and Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is unsecured. Airstrikes are intensifying and hitting a greater number of targets.

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‘No clear goal’: lack of Iran war plan has unleashed chaos and could stymie US military for decades, say critics

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White House contends with reality of shoddy preparations for war and unclear conditions for victory

As US and Israeli jets descended to deliver the opening salvos of the war in Iran, Donald Trump’s back-of-the-envelope plan for regime change in Tehran was about to run into the reality of the largest US intervention in the Middle East since the start of the Iraq war in 2003.

That reality came quickly.

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Four crew confirmed dead after US military plane crash in Iraq

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Rescue efforts continue for remaining two crew members from refuelling plane that crashed in western desert

Four of the six crew members onboard a US military aircraft that crashed in western Iraq were killed, the US military has said as rescue efforts continued for the remaining two.

The KC-135 military refuelling plane crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, in an incident the military said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.

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Trump names Erika Kirk to key advisory board of US Air Force Academy

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Widow of murdered rightwing activist Charlie Kirk replaces husband on 16-member panel of military training facility

Donald Trump has appointed Erika Kirk, the widow of murdered rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, to a key advisory board of the US Air Force Academy.

The 37-year-old joins a number of other loyalists to the president on the 16-member panel of the academy’s board of visitors, which according to its website “inquires into the morale, discipline, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods and other matters” of the Colorado Springs military training facility.

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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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