Arizona Republican, the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat, spoke about her experience during a Senate hearing Wednesday
Senator Martha McSally, the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat, has said she was raped in the air force by a superior officer.
The Arizona Republican, a 26-year military veteran, made the disclosure at a Senate hearing on Wednesday on the armed services’ efforts to prevent sexual assaults and improve the response when they occur.
Continue reading...New hypersonic missiles could hit targets including Pentagon in under five minutes, it claims
Russian state television has broadcast a map of the US showing military facilities Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, in a report that was unusual even by its own bellicose standards.
The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland. A hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes, it said.
Continue reading...Tokyo sees controversial plan for new base at Henoko as key to US security alliance
Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has vowed to push on with the controversial relocation of a US military base in Okinawa, hours after the island’s voters overwhelmingly rejected the move in a referendum.
Just over 70% of voters – or 434,000 people – opposed construction of a new base on Okinawa’s northeast coast that will replace an existing US marine corps base 30 miles away. Just 19% voted in favour of the move, with turnout at 52%.
Continue reading...Defence minister’s comments at Munich conference reflect deepening transatlantic rift
The Nato alliance is about decency and dependability, not just cash and contributions, Germany’s defence minister has said in a rebuke to Donald Trump over his insistence that European countries rapidly increase their defence spending.
Ursula von der Leyen told a gathering of defence ministers in Munich the alliance was about fairness in collective decision-making, and not just during military missions.
Continue reading...Monica Witt, who defected in 2013, worked as a cryptologist and a counter-intelligence investigator for more than 10 years
A former US air force intelligence officer who defected to Iran in 2013 has been charged with espionage, giving away the identity of a US agent and other secrets.
Monica Witt, aged 39, was a cryptologist and a counter-intelligence investigator for the US air force for more than 10 years before working as an intelligence analyst for the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton for five months in 2008 and doing other private sector work.
Continue reading...Hope is real after landmark Taliban talks, but fears remain about what might happen if US troops depart
The start of 2019 has brought for Afghanistan a tantalising hope of peace, fragile but very real, as the Taliban sat down for talks first with Americans in Qatar and this week with senior members of the Afghan elite in Moscow.
These discussions come fraught with fears, that the progress for women and civil rights will be traded away too easily, and that the Taliban may renege on any deal once US troops and their coercive power are gone.
Continue reading...Announcement gives Russia 180 days to destroy violating missiles and launchers to avoid new arms race
Donald Trump has confirmed that the US is leaving the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, saying “we will move forward with developing our own military response options” to Russia’s suspect missile.
In a written statement, Trump said that the US would be suspending its compliance with the 1987 treaty on Saturday, and would serve formal notice that it would withdraw altogether in six months.
Continue reading...Turkey is seen as the Kurds’ mortal enemy but it uses German tanks and British helicopters: this is an international outrage
Remember those plucky Kurdish forces who so heroically defended the Syrian city of Kobane from Isis? They risk being wiped out by Nato.
The autonomous Kurdish region of Rojava in Northeast Syria, which includes Kobane, faces invasion. A Nato army is amassing on the border, marshaling all the overwhelming firepower and high-tech equipment that only the most advanced military forces can deploy. The commander in chief of those forces says he wants to return Rojava to its “rightful owners” who, he believes, are Arabs, not Kurds.
Continue reading...US troops would withdraw from Afghanistan within 18 months of full agreement
US and Taliban officials have agreed in principle to the framework of a deal that could pave the way for peace talks in Kabul and ultimately the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the country’s 17-year conflict.
Under the terms of the draft framework, the insurgents would promise to stop Afghan territory being used by terrorists. The US special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, confirmed the existence of the draft in an interview with the New York Times (NYT).
Continue reading...Turkish president tells Donald Trump he is ready to send troops into US-overseen areas
The threat of a growing security vacuum in Syria as a result of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops has been underlined by an attack on a joint US-Kurdish patrol, which reportedly killed five people and injured at least two American soldiers.
The attack on Monday, in which a suicide bomber drove a car into a checkpoint, emphasised the vulnerability of American troops since the US president declared he was withdrawing 2,000 soldiers from northern Syria on the grounds that Islamic State has been defeated.
Continue reading...Attack follows extremist group’s assault on hotel complex in Nairobi, which killed 21 people
A US airstrike in Somalia has killed 52 Islamic militants from al-Shabaab, military officials have said.
The strike comes days after a deadly attack by the extremist organisation on a luxury hotel complex in Nairobi, Kenya.
Continue reading...The US military said it carried out an airstrike in Somalia that killed 52 al-Shabaab extremists, in response to an attack on Somali forces.
Related: Al-Shabaab's Nairobi attack is a reminder that tit-for-tat terror never succeeds | Mukoma wa Ngugi
Continue reading...Arms control experts fear system review, unveiled at Pentagon, could fuel arms race with Russia and China
Donald Trump has announced plans for a huge expansion of US missile defense with aim of destroying enemy missiles “anywhere, anytime, any place”.
The missile defense review, which Trump unveiled on Thursday in a speech at the Pentagon, calls for a major upgrade in land and sea-based missile interceptor systems, as well as the development of a layer of satellite sensors in low orbit that would help track new types of cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) countries like Russia and China are developing.
Continue reading...The ‘mind-boggling’ request came after two incidents in Iraq last September when militia mortar and rockets exploded near US diplomatic facilities
The White House asked the Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran in the wake of two incidents in Iraq last September when mortar shells and rockets fired by militias exploded near US diplomatic facilities, it was reported on Sunday.
Related: US will expel every last Iranian boot from Syria, says Mike Pompeo
Continue reading...Training on a base in California, and later serving in Afghanistan, made me confront the reality of American empire, and the injustice that pervades society at home
Continue reading...Secretary of state seeks to reassure Middle East that US is not abandoning region
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has vowed the US and its allies will “expel every last Iranian boot” from Syria as he sought to reassure Middle Eastern nations it was not withdrawing from the region despite Donald Trump’s call for troops to return home.
In a keynote speech delivered in Cairo, pitched as the centrepiece of his nine-country regional tour, Pompeo called for a common stand against Tehran. “It’s time for old rivalries to end, for the sake of the greater good of the region,” he said.
Continue reading...Detention adds pressure to the rising tension between Iran and the US as Trump pursues a maximalist campaign against Tehran
Iran has confirmed it is holding a US navy veteran, Michael R White, at a prison in the country, making him the first American known to be detained under Donald Trump’s administration.
White’s detention ratchets up the rising tension between Iran and the US, which under Trump has pursued a maximalist campaign against Tehran that includes pulling out of its nuclear deal with world powers.
Continue reading...Special operations chief Edward Gallagher is also accused of shooting at unarmed Iraqi civilians at random
A decorated navy Seal has pleaded not guilty to charges of premeditated murder and other crimes in the stabbing death of a teenage Islamic State prisoner in Iraq and the shooting of unarmed Iraqi civilians.
Special operations chief Edward Gallagher has been jailed since his September arrest, and a judge said he would rule next week whether the 19-year navy veteran should be released before trial. He was due to stand trial 19 February.
Continue reading...British foreign secretary says Paul Whelan should not be used as a diplomatic pawn
The British foreign secretary has warned Russia not to try to use Paul Whelan, the British–American national arrested on spying charges, as a diplomatic pawn.
Jeremy Hunt said the UK was “extremely worried” about Hunt and had offered consular assistance. It emerged on Friday that Whelan, detained a week ago in Moscow, also holds Irish and Canadian passports, adding more layers of complexity to a potentially fraught diplomatic incident.
Continue reading...Embassy in Moscow offers help to arrested US citizen during meeting in ex-KGB prison
The US ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman, has visited a former marine in a Moscow prison where he is being held on espionage charges, the state department has confirmed.
Paul Whelan, who is head of global security for a Michigan-based car parts supplier, was detained in Russia on Friday. In announcing the arrest three days later, the Russian Federal Security Service said he was caught “during an espionage operation”, but gave no details.
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