Pentagon

  • Another potential flare-up has surfaced in Middle East. Palestinian and Israeli officials say Israeli troops mistakenly shot and killed a 65-year-old Palestinian man in his bed during a pre-dawn raid Friday in order to arrest a Hamas militant. Palestinian security and rescue officials in the West Bank city of Hebron said Israeli troops shot and killed the man who lived in the same building but on a different floor as the Hamas militant targeted in the early morning raid.

    January 09, 2011
  • General George Casey will complete his tour as Army Chief of Staff later this spring. Gen. Martin Dempsey is expected to replace him. If President Barack Obama accepts and nominates Dempsey, he would have to be confirmed by the Senate. Dempsey is now commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command and previously was acting commander of Central Command. He also led the multi-national training effort in Iraq and commanded the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad.

    January 09, 2011
  • The Obama administration has ramped up its secret war on terror groups with a new military targeting center to oversee the growing use of special operations strikes against suspected militants in hot spots around the world.

    January 07, 2011
  • The House is planning a 2012 budget that will cut spending to below 2008 levels, Reuters reports. Also, a budget plan for the remainder of the current 2011 fiscal year would trim $60 billion —…

    January 04, 2011
  • No evidence that U.S drones were shot down in the Persian Gulf. That\'s the word from the Pentagon. But Iran is claiming that it took out two Western drones in the Gulf. Reuters reports, the last time a U.S. drone crashed in the Gulf was in 2009 after a mechanical failure. Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan says there are \"no recent reports that would corroborate what the Revolutionary Guard said about unmanned aerial vehicles.\"

    January 04, 2011
  • Pieces of the suicide bomber\'s car were strewn across the street. Three police cars and a handful of civilian cars and shops in the area were destroyed by the blast in Kabul Monday. In a statement, President Hamid Karzi condemned the midday attack. But the incident and others like it highlight the wobbly state of security in Afghanistan as that weak nation tries to build a security force and stomp out insurgents hiding in Afghanistan\'s rugged terrain and porous borders.

    December 28, 2010
  • The last policeman standing or in this case policewoman has gone down in a strip of border towns in the Juarez Valley of Mexico. Gunmen stormed into the home of Erika Gándara in the town of Guadalupe about 6 o\'clock am. two days before Christmas and kidnapped her. The 28 year ood Gándara, was the only police officer in the municipality of Guadalupe which is about two miles from the Texas border. All the rest of the police, the men, had fled the town, giving in to the powerful drug cartels and their henchmen. No word on her condition.

    December 28, 2010
  • Who\'s behind blasts at embassies across Europe. Package bombs exploded at the Swiss and Chilean Embassies and were found at others. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but authorities appeared to discount domestic anarchists or protesters. Rome\'s Mayor Gianni Alemanno \"It\'s a wave of terrorism against embassies, something much more worrisome than a single attack,\" Last month, suspected Greek radical anarchists sent fourteen mail bombs to foreign embassies in Athens.

    December 27, 2010
  • At a recent meeting with lawmakers and industry representatives to review the Pentagon\'s cut-cutting measures, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn explained what the state can expect.

    December 22, 2010
  • A bomb exploded at a downtown bus station in Kenya\'s capital late yesterday as passengers boarded a bus, killing at least one person and wounding more than 39 others, Police say the person who was killed was carrying a piece of luggage that contained the bomb. Most of the wounded were Ugandans traveling home for Christmas, Al-Shabab, Somalia\'s most dangerous militant group, has threatened to carry out more attacks on Uganda and Burundi, the two nations that contribute troops to the 8,000-strong African Union force in Mogadishu.

    December 21, 2010
  • Congress has authorized the Pentagon to spend nearly $160 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with no major restrictions on the conduct of operations. This year\'s approved legislation includes $725 billion in defense programs, including $158.7 billion for overseas combat. Among its numerous provisions is a 1.4 percent pay raise for troops and a guarantee that children of service members can stay covered under the military\'s TRICARE health care program until they are 26 years of age.

    December 20, 2010
  • The Afghanistan and Pakistan Annual Review reaffirms the strategy\'s \"core goal\" to disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al-Qaida in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and prevent its return to either country. We get details from DoD\'s David Sedney.

    December 17, 2010
  • For the second time this year the House voted to dismantle the military\'s \"don\'t ask, don\'t tell\" policy, giving the Senate a final shot in the waning days of this Congress at changing a law requiring thousands of uniformed gays to hide their sexual identity.

    December 16, 2010
  • There are consequences to posting those Wikileaks documents. The Air Force has blocked access on its network to more than two dozen media outlets who have posted them. The Pentagon has warned personnel not to go to the Wikileaks site, but this takes it a step further. Meaning, US Air Force personnel will not be able to get to those sites from their military networks. Among those blocked are the Guardian and the New York Times.

    December 15, 2010