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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...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!”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.”
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Elite helicopter unit’s part in military deployment comes as Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Nicolás Maduro
They call themselves the Night Stalkers and their unofficial motto hints at the group’s lethal nocturnal line of work: “Death Waits in the Dark.” “You can flee, but they will find you,” warns a rare book about the US army’s secretive 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR).
Since the elite helicopter unit’s creation in 1981, its daredevil pilots have taken part in some of the most dangerous missions in recent US military history: battling Islamic State during Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria, and Somali warlords during Operation Gothic Serpent; and spiriting Navy Seals into Pakistan to kill the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as part of Operation Neptune Spear.
Continue reading...Shrapnel fragments rained on vehicles parked on Interstate 5 including highway patrol and JD Vance’s detail
A live artillery shell exploded prematurely during a marines live-fire demonstration that launched over a southern California freeway in celebration of the military branch’s 250th anniversary, raining shrapnel down on a California Highway Patrol vehicle and a motorcycle that was part of JD Vance’s detail, according to a police report.
The New York Times reported that fragments that fell from the 155mm shell landed on vehicles parked on a ramp on Interstate 5 – a major artery through southern California – which governor Gavin Newsom had ordered closed after learning that military officials had no plans to close the freeway.
Continue reading...Trump vows to cut US funding as Pete Hegseth says US hit Colombian rebel group vessel and ‘three terrorists killed’
Donald Trump on Sunday accused Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, of being an “illegal drug dealer” and threatened to immediately cut US funding to the country as the defense secretary confirmed in a social media post an attack on a vessel associated with a Colombian leftist rebel group.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that US forces had attacked another vessel, this time associated with a Colombian leftist rebel group. Hegseth, in a post on X, said “three terrorists were killed” in the operation which was “conducted in international waters”.
Continue reading...Releasing them from US custody evades thorny legal issues regarding military detention of suspected drug smugglers
The Trump administration is moving to send the two survivors of Thursday’s strike in the Caribbean overseas rather than seek long-term military detention for them, four US officials and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday.
The source, who like the US officials spoke on condition of anonymity, said the survivors were being sent to Colombia and Ecuador.
Continue reading...Highway patrol announces last-minute, multihour closure due to military celebration including 155-mm artillery shells
A celebration marking the US marines’ 250th anniversary will shut down a major freeway artery through southern California on Saturday as the military plans to fire live 155mm artillery shells over the site.
The California highway patrol announced the closure at 6am Saturday, saying it would shut down an approximately 17-mile (27km) stretch of Interstate 5 for four hours near Camp Pendleton, a 125,000-acre (50,585-hectare) base in Oceanside in north-western San Diego county. The closure will remain in effect from 11am to 3pm.
Continue reading...President says Venezuelan counterpart ‘doesn’t want to fuck around with the United States’
Donald Trump used an expletive to threaten the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, on Friday, claiming that the leftist autocrat had offered major concessions to appease the US.
The US president was speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday during a meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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