Tag Archives: Military

Military can destroy drones over domestic U.S. bases: Pentagon

FILE PHOTO: A drone hovers at a viewpoint overlooking the Space Needle and skyline of tech hub Seattle, Washington, U.S. February 11, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Helgren

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon has given more than 130 U.S. military bases across the United States the green light to shoot down private and commercial drones that could endanger aviation safety or pose other threats.

The number of uncrewed aircraft in U.S. skies has zoomed in recent years and continues to increase rapidly – along with concern among U.S. and private-sector officials that dangerous or even hostile drones could get too close to places like military bases, airports and sports stadiums.

While the specific actions that the U.S. military can take against drones are classified, they include destroying or seizing private and commercial drones that pose a threat, Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis told reporters on Monday.

The classified guidelines were distributed early last month. The Pentagon sent out unclassified guidance on how to communicate the policy to communities on Friday.

“The increase of commercial and private drones in the United States has raised our concerns with regards to the safety and security of our installations, aviation safety and the safety of people,” Davis said.

In April, flights of nearly all drones over 133 U.S. military facilities were banned due to security concerns.

Drones have become popular as toys and with hobbyists, and have commercial uses such as aerial photography. Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> and Alphabet Inc’s Google unit <GOOGL.O> have been exploring the use of drones to deliver goods ordered online.

The FAA estimated the commercial drone fleet would grow from 42,000 at the end of 2016 to about 442,000 aircraft by 2021. The FAA said there could be as many as 1.6 million commercial drones in use by 2021.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Georgian soldier killed in Afghanistan convoy attack: coalition

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Georgian soldier from the NATO-led Resolute Support mission was killed and six personnel were wounded in Afghanistan on Thursday after a suicide bomber attacked their convoy in Kabul province, a coalition statement said.

In addition, two Afghan civilians were killed and seven wounded in the attack.

The wounded service personnel, three Georgians, two Americans and a local interpreter, were being treated at a U.S. military hospital at Bagram airfield and were in stable condition, the statement said.

The incident occurred in Qarabagh district outside the capital, Kabul.

The coalition maintains nearly 13,000 troops from 39 countries, as part of a mission to train, advise and assist Afghan troops. Georgia is not a member of NATO, but has 870 troops serving in Afghanistan, one of the largest contingents in the coalition.

“The commitment of Georgia as our largest non-NATO contributor is vital to our mission and we are honored to stand beside them under these difficult circumstances,” said the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson.

A suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan killed two American troops on Wednesday as they traveled in a convoy near the airport in southern Kandahar city, the U.S. military said, in a strike claimed by the Taliban insurgency.

The attack was seen as a reminder of the dangers posed to the 8,400 U.S. service members in Afghanistan as President Donald Trump weighs sending thousands more troops to fight America’s longest war.

U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan have asked for several thousand additional troops, but the request is stalled in Washington, where Trump has expressed skepticism over extending the American commitment.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and James Mackenzie; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Clarence Fernandez)

Eyeing Russia, U.S. military shifts toward more global war games

U.S. army soldiers leave Black Hawk helicopter during Suwalki gap defence exercise in Mikyciai, Lithuania, June 17, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

By Andrea Shalal

STUTTGART, Germany (Reuters) – The U.S. military is moving toward more global exercises to better prepare for a more assertive Russia and other worldwide threats, a senior officer said in an interview with Reuters.

Air Force Brigadier General John Healy, who directs exercises for U.S. forces in Europe, said officials realized they needed to better prepare for increasingly complex threats across all domains of war – land, sea, air, space and cyber.

Some smaller-scale war games with a global focus had already occurred, but the goal was to carry out more challenging exercises by fiscal year 2020 that involved forces from all nine U.S. combatant commands – instead of focusing on specific regions or one military service, such as the Marines.

“What we’re eventually going toward is a globally integrated exercise program so that we (are) … all working off the same sheet of music in one combined global exercise,” Healy said in an interview this week.

He said war games and training were imperative to rehearse for possible conflicts and they needed to reflect the global nature of today’s military threats, including cyber warfare.

Healy said Russia was his main focus in Europe, and officials were keeping a close watch on Moscow’s Zapad military exercises that begin next month and which experts say could involve about 100,000 troops.

He said Russian observers attended recent U.S. and NATO exercises in the Black Sea region, but Moscow had not extended a similar invitation to its own war games. “They’re not being as transparent as we are,” he said.

Moscow says its war games will involve less than 13,000 troops and so do not require invitations to outside observers.

Healy said an initial assessment of a range of exercises conducted across Europe this summer with over 40,000 U.S. and allied forces had been positive, but a deeper assessment would be completed in October.

As a deterrent to Russia after its 2014 annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine, U.S. and NATO forces have boosted their presence and training in Europe.

This has included the addition of four NATO battle groups with 1,000 soldiers each in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, all of which have borders with Russia.

Next year, the U.S. military plans 11 major exercises that will take in a range of NATO allies from Iceland to Britain, the Baltic states, and possibly Finland, according to Healy. Those exercises too will bring together air, ground and naval forces.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Trump, frustrated by Afghan war, suggests firing U.S. commander: officials

FILE PHOTO: A U.S. Navy Corpsman and U.S. soldier take part in a helicopter Medevac exercise in Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 6, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani/File Photo

By Steve Holland and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s doubts about the war in Afghanistan has led to a delay in completing a new U.S. strategy in South Asia, skepticism that included a suggestion that the U.S. military commander in the region be fired, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

During a July 19 meeting in the White House Situation Room, Trump demanded that his top national security aides provide more information on what one official called “the end-state” in a country where the United States has spent 16 years fighting against the Taliban with no end in sight.

The meeting grew stormy when Trump said Defense Secretary James Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford, a Marine general, should consider firing Army General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, for not winning the war.

“We aren’t winning,” he told them, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In addition, once the meeting concluded, Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, got into what one official called “a shouting match” with White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster over the direction of U.S. policy.

Some officials left the meeting “stunned” by the president’s vehement complaints that the military was allowing the United States to lose the war

Mattis, McMaster and other top aides are putting together answers to Trump’s questions in a way to try to get him to approve the strategy, the officials said.

The White House had no comment on the accounts of the meeting.

Another meeting of top aides is scheduled on Thursday.

Although Trump earlier this year gave Mattis the authority to deploy U.S. military forces as he sees fit, in fact the defense secretary’s plans to add around 4,000 more U.S. troops to the 8,400 currently deployed in Afghanistan are being caught up in the delay surrounding the strategy, the officials said.

“It’s been contingent all along informally on the strategy being approved,” a senior administration official said of the troop deployment.

Trump has long been a skeptic of lingering U.S. involvement in foreign wars and has expressed little interest in deploying military forces without a specific plan on what they will do and for how long.

Officials said Trump argued that the United States should demand a share of Afghanistan’s estimated $1 trillion in mineral wealth in exchange for its assistance to the Afghan government.

But other officials noted that without securing the entire country, which could take many years, there is no way to get the country’s mineral riches to market, except to Iran. Trump complained that the Chinese are profiting from their mining operations, the officials said.

(Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Turkish Supreme Military Council replaces land, air and navy commanders: media

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses academics during a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey July 26, 2017. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey decided on Wednesday to replace the heads of the army, air force and navy, local media reported, in the latest shake-up of the armed forces following last year’s failed coup.

The heads of the three branches will be replaced by other top members of the military, broadcaster NTV reported, following a meeting on Wednesday of the Supreme Military Council (YAS) chaired by Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

The changes are expected to be presented to President Tayyip Erdogan for approval and then announced to the public. Military officials were not immediately available for comment.

The commander of the Turkish Land Forces, Salih Zeki Colak, will be replaced by the commander of the gendarmerie forces Yasar Guler, broadcaster NTV reported. It said Naval commander Bulent Bostanoglu would be replaced by Adnan Ozbal, a vice-admiral.

Air Force commander Abidin Unal will be replaced by Hasan Kucukakyuz, currently commander of the Turkish Warfare Air Force, NTV said.

However, Wednesday’s meeting marks its top military body’s third gathering since last July’s failed coup attempt, when rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, fighter jets and helicopters in an attempt to topple the government.

Last year, the YAS reduced the length of some officers’ service, while also putting 586 colonels into retirement and extending the period of service of another 434 colonels by two years.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan)

Hypothetically speaking, U.S. Admiral says ready for nuclear strike on China if Trump so ordered

FILE PHOTO: Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Scott Swift sits in front of a large poster of an Australian Navy frigate as he speaks during a media conference at the 2015 Pacific International Maratime Exposition in Sydney, Australia, October 6, 2015. To match Special Report USA-TRUMP/CARRIERS REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – The U.S. Pacific Fleet commander, addressing a security conference in Australia, said in answer to a question on Thursday that he would be prepared to launch a nuclear strike on China if President Donald Trump so ordered.

The fleet spokesman later said the question was asked as an “outrageous hypothetical”.

Admiral Scott Swift was speaking at the Australian National University in Canberra when he was asked whether he would be prepared to launch a nuclear attack on China if ordered to do so by Trump.

“The answer would be yes,” he said.

Swift said that all members of the U.S. military had sworn an oath to obey officers and the U.S. president as commander in chief to defend the constitution.

“This is core to the American democracy,” he said, in a recording of the event obtained by Reuters.

“Any time you have a military that is moving away from a focus, and an allegiance, to civilian control, then we really have significant problems.”

Swift’s answer reaffirmed the principle of civilian control over the military and was based on an “outrageous hypothetical” in the question, Pacific Fleet spokesman Captain Charlie Brown told Reuters.

“Frankly, the premise of the question was ridiculous,” he said. “It was posed as an outrageous hypothetical, but the admiral simply took it as an opportunity to say the fact is that we have civilian control of the military and we abide by that principle.”

Speaking in Beijing on Friday, a spokesman of China’s Foreign Ministry also downplayed the remark.

“Many people have paid attention to this but the spokesman for the Pacific Fleet has pointed out the ridiculousness of this report,” Lu Kang told a daily news briefing.

The United States and China enjoy a generally friendly relationship, with strong economic ties, albeit with frequent barbs about trade, jobs, currencies, human rights, Tibet, the South China Sea and North Korea.

Trump has held high hopes for greater cooperation from China to exert influence over North Korea, leaning heavily on Chinese President Xi Jinping for his assistance. The two leaders had a high-profile summit in Florida in April and Trump has frequently praised Xi.

(Reporting by Colin Packham in SYDNEY and Melanie Burton in MELBOURNE; Additional reporting by Philip Wen in BEIJING; Editing by Nick Macfie and Clarence Fernandez)

Eyeing Deir al-Zor, Syrian army advances on Islamic State town

FILE PHOTO - Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stand on their military vehicle in northern Deir al-Zor province ahead of an offensive against Islamic State militants, Syria February 21, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces are nearing the last major town held by Islamic State (IS) in Homs province, part of their multi-pronged advance toward the jihadist group’s strongholds in the east of the country, a military source said on Thursday.

The source said combat operations would accelerate toward the town of al-Sukhna, some 50 km (30 miles) from the administrative frontier of Deir al-Zor province, where IS has redeployed many fighters after losing ground in Syria and Iraq.

“Capturing al-Sukhna means opening the door and path for forces to move to Deir al-Zor directly,” the source told Reuters, adding that the military had captured positions 8 km (5 miles) southwest of the town on Wednesday evening.

Islamic State is losing ground fast in Syria to separate campaigns waged by the Russian-backed Syrian government on the one hand, and to U.S.-backed Kurdish forces and their allies on the other.

Government forces, backed by the Russian air force and Iran-backed militias, have also been advancing against IS in Hama province and in southern areas of Raqqa province.

U.S.-led operations against IS are currently focused on taking Raqqa city.

Government forces have been approaching al-Sukhna gradually since capturing the ancient city of Palmyra, some 50 km away, in March.

“It is natural that combat operations escalate in this direction and take on a stronger and faster nature,” the source said, adding that Islamic State had concentrated forces in al-Sukhna.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government forces were being supported in the attack by Russian air strikes and allied militias, and had moved to within 5 km of al-Sukhna.

Deir al-Zor province, which borders Iraq to the east, is almost entirely under Islamic State control. The Syrian government has held on to a pocket of territory in the provincial capital of Deir al-Zor city, and at nearby air base.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Iran and Iraq sign accord to boost military cooperation

Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan delivers a speech as he attends the 5th Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS) in Moscow, Russia, April 27, 2016. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran and Iraq signed an agreement on Sunday to step up military cooperation and the fight against “terrorism and extremism”, Iranian media reported, an accord which is likely to raise concerns in Washington.

Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan and his Iraqi counterpart Erfan al-Hiyali signed a memorandum of understanding which also covered border security, logistics and training, the official news agency IRNA reported.

“Extending cooperation and exchanging experiences in fighting terrorism and extremism, border security, and educational, logistical, technical and military support are among the provisions of this memorandum,” IRNA reported after the signing of the accord in Tehran.

Iran-Iraq ties have improved since Iran’s long-time enemy Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003 and an Iraqi government led by Shi’ite Muslims came to power. Iran is mostly a Shi’ite nation.

U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced concern over what he sees as growing Iranian influence in conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, where it is aligned with Shi’ite fighters.

Tensions between Iran and the United States have heightened since the election of Trump, who has often accused Tehran of backing militant groups and destabilizing the region.

Earlier this month, Trump said that new threats were emerging from “rogue regimes like North Korea, Iran and Syria and the governments that finance and support them”.

The U.S. military has accused Iran of stoking violence in Iraq by funding, training and equipping militias. Iran denies this, blaming the presence of U.S. troops for the violence.

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Toby Chopra)

China says reforms have made military more nimble

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends a news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, July 5, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s military is more nimble and technologically proficient following reforms to make it more compact and responsive, rather than just relying on strength of numbers, state media on Tuesday cited President Xi Jinping as saying.

China’s armed forces, the world’s largest, are in the midst of an ambitious modernization program, from restructuring to troop cuts and investment in technology and equipment upgrades, such as acquiring stealth fighters and aircraft carriers.

Speaking to the ruling Communist Party’s elite Politburo, Xi called for all-out efforts to drive military reform, the official Xinhua news agency said.

“After the reforms, our military’s scale is smaller, but it is more capable, its structure is more optimized, its formation more scientific,” the report paraphrased Xi, who is head of the military, as saying.

This has changed the model of the armed forces, which once depended for victory on strength of numbers, but are now making great strides to becoming a high-quality, effective and technologically proficient military, Xi added.

China’s military has not fought a war in decades and the government insists it has no hostile intent, simply needing the ability to properly defend what is now the world’s second-largest economy.

But China has rattled nerves around the Asian region with its increasingly assertive stance in the East and South China Seas and its military equipment modernization plan.

Xi, who made the comments ahead of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army on Aug. 1, called the reforms unprecedented in the history of Communist China.

“A strong military is an important strategic prop for a strong country, and is also an important strategic mission for our party,” Xi said.

The reforms have not been uncontroversial, with unease in particular about the 300,000 troop cuts Xi announced in 2015.

Xi appeared to allude to those cuts by saying government officials must “make every effort to help officers and soldiers resolve worries about the future consequences”.

The report did not elaborate.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Syrian army declares cessation of hostilities east of capital: state TV

A fighter from Free Syrian Army's Al Rahman legion walks near piled sandbags in Ain Tarma, eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria July 17, 2017. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian military declared a cessation of hostilities on Saturday in the rebel-controlled Eastern Ghouta region near the capital, state television reported.

Eastern Ghouta, stretching from eastern to northeastern suburbs of Damascus, has long been under opposition control in the six-year conflict, as rebels have lost ground in the west.

State television reported a “cessation of fighting activities in several areas of Eastern Ghouta.”

It said the cessation began at 12:00 noon (0900 GMT) and any violation would receive an “appropriate response”.

Syrian rebel group Failaq al-Rahman, which operates in Eastern Ghouta, welcomed the cessation and said ceasefires were a first step to resolving the Syrian conflict. Writing on Twitter, spokesman Waiel Olwan said the government must respect the truce.

There have been many attempts at a lasting ceasefire in western Syria, where rebels have lost ground to government forces and their allies over the last year. Regional truces have often collapsed with both sides trading the blame.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said there had been isolated incidents of shellfire since the announced ceasefire took effect, but no major fighting.

The United States, Russia and Jordan reached a ceasefire and “de-escalation agreement” for southwestern Syria this month, which has reduced violence.

But fighting has continued on other front lines, such as Eastern Ghouta, an area where the opposition said the government had launched gas attacks in 2013. The government denies this.

(Reporting by John Davison; Editing by David Clarke and Edmund Blair)