The threat of terrorism from the Middle East was a consequence of American involvement, not the reason for it. If the US had not been involved since the 1940s, Islamic militants would have little interest in attacking it.
Retired Army Special Forces officer Mike Nelson criticized Hegseth's rhetoric, stating, 'That's a necessary end to achieve goals through military force - you have to kill people to achieve them. That's not the end. It's a weird obsession with death for the sake of it.'
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin was arrested by Kuwaiti authorities on March 3, facing charges related to social media posts about the war, with limited access to his lawyer for six weeks.
The incident occurred in friendly airspace during Operation Epic Fury. A statement said the crash was not the result of hostile or friendly fire and involved one other refueling plane. The second plane landed safely in Israel, officials said. A US official, speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said the KC-135 that crashed had as many as six service members on board.
Air campaigns today are built around cooperation between many different aircraft, each performing a specific task. Stealth fighters lead the way into contested airspace, electronic warfare aircraft disrupt enemy radar, and bombers or strike fighters deliver precision weapons. Supporting aircraft provide intelligence, command and control, and the fuel needed to keep the entire operation moving.
The American people love to win. If you go back and you look at Desert Storm, and obviously you can speak to this much better than I, I mean it was very successful. The amount of time they had troops on the ground for was days, not even weeks, and you look at Bush's ratings coming out of that and he had an 89% approval rating.
I'm not putting troops anywhere. If I were, I certainly wouldn't tell you. But I'm not putting troops. We will do whatever is necessary. A White House official stated: There has been no decision to send ground troops at this time, but President Trump wisely keeps all options at his disposal.
Senior defence official Joseph Humire said that 47 narco-trafficking vessels have been struck in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific since the campaign began in September, in a written statement to members of the US Congress. Asked by lawmakers on Tuesday whether the quantity of drugs entering the US has gone down, Humire stated that the movement of drug-trafficking vessels had decreased by 20 percent in the Caribbean.
Trump said on Thursday that a US armada is heading towards the Gulf region with Iran being its focus. US officials said an aircraft carrier strike group and other assets are to arrive in the Middle East in the coming days. We're watching Iran. We have a big force going towards Iran, Trump said. And maybe we won't have to use it. We have a lot of ships going that direction.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed all Israeli and US military targets in the Middle East have been struck by the powerful blows of Iranian missiles. This operation will continue relentlessly until the enemy is decisively defeated, it said. All US assets throughout the region are considered legitimate targets for Iran's army, it added.
A US military refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, in an incident US Central Command said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire. The United States has surged a large number of aircraft into the Middle East to take part in operations against Iran.
Huge fireballs and thick plumes of smoke rose over Tehran after joint United States-Israeli air strikes hit fuel depots in the Iranian capital. Iran's oil distribution company said four of its employees were killed in the blitz, as a dark haze hung over the city on Sunday and the smell of burning oil lingered in the air.
Air Forces Central, the air component of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), said on Tuesday that it would hold a multi-day readiness exercise to demonstrate the ability to deploy, disperse, and sustain combat airpower across the US Central Command area of responsibility. The exercise was designed to enhance asset and personnel dispersal capability, strengthen regional partnerships and prepare for flexible response execution, Air Forces Central added in a statement.
Gulf countries have pledged support for Kuwait's sovereignty after Iraq submitted new maritime coordinates and an updated map to the United Nations. Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates backed Kuwait after the emirate summoned Iraq's charge d'affaires on Saturday to protest Baghdad's move, calling it a violation of its sovereignty. list of 3 itemsend of list Iraq said it made the updates based on the lowest low-water line used to measure its territorial sea.
The British government has not given permission for the US to use UK military bases to support potential US strikes on Iran, the BBC understands. The US has in the past used RAF Fairford, in Gloucestershire, and the UK overseas territory of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, to carry out strikes in the Middle East region. A UK government spokesperson said: "As routine, we do not comment on operational matters."
