Trucks carrying badly needed aid for the Gaza Strip rolled across a newly built US floating pier into the besieged enclave for the first time on Friday as Israeli restrictions on border crossings and heavy fighting hinder food and other supplies reaching people there. The shipment is the first in an operation that American military officials anticipate could scale up to 150 truckloads a day entering the Gaza Strip as Israel presses in on the southern city of Rafah as its 7-month offensive against Hamas rages on. But the US and aid groups also warn that the pier project is not considered a substitute for land deliveries that could bring in all the food, water and fuel needed in Gaza. Before the war, more than 500 truckloads entered Gaza on an average day. The operation's success also remains tenuous due to the risk of militant attack, logistical hurdles and a growing shortage of fuel for the trucks to run due to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip since Hamas' October 7 attack on
The US military finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip on Thursday, with officials poised to begin ferrying badly needed humanitarian aid into the enclave besieged over seven months of intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war. The final, overnight construction sets up a complicated delivery process more than two months after US President Joe Biden ordered it to help Palestinians facing starvation as food and other supplies fail to make it in as Israel recently seized the key Rafah border crossing in its push on that southern city on the Egyptian border. Fraught with logistical, weather and security challenges, the maritime route is designed to bolster the amount of aid getting into the Gaza Strip, but it is not considered a substitute for far cheaper land-based deliveries that aid agencies say are much more sustainable. The boatloads of aid will be deposited at a port facility built by the Israelis just southwest of Gaza City and then distributed by aid groups. US ..
US-Taiwan military engagement, including visits and training, are kept low-key and are often not officially confirmed because of China's objection to military contacts between Washington and Taipei
President Joe Biden has issued an order blocking a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining firm from owning land near a Wyoming nuclear missile base. The order forces the divestment of property operated as a crypto mining facility near the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. It also forces the removal of certain equipment owned by MineOne Partners Ltd., a firm that is partly owned by the Chinese state. This comes as the US is slated on Tuesday to issue major new tariffs on electric vehicles, semiconductors, solar equipment, and medical supplies imported from China, according to a US official and another person familiar with the plan. The divestment order was made in coordination with the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States a little-known but potentially powerful government agency tasked with investigating corporate deals for national security concerns that holds power to force the company to change. A 2018 law granted CFIUS the authority to review real estate ...
The US agrees that China has more missiles, more ships and more men, but it has a plan to counter Beijing's quantitative military edge
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the possibility of sanctions on a Israel Defense Forces battalion 'the peak of absurdity and a moral low'
Japan and the U.S. have cooperated in supporting the PCG's capacity building, and the three countries held trilateral Coast Guard exercises for the first time last June
President Joe Biden is set to host Iraq's leader this week for talks that come as tensions across the Middle East have soared over the war in Gaza and Iran's unprecedented weekend attack on Israel in retaliation for an Israeli military strike against an Iranian facility in Syria. The sharp rise in security fears has raised further questions about the viability of the two-decade American military presence in Iraq, through which portions of Iran's Saturday drone and missile attack on Israel flew or were launched from. A U.S. Patriot battery in Irbil, Iraq, knocked down at least one Iranian ballistic missile, according to American officials. In addition, Iranian proxies have initiated attacks against U.S. interests throughout the region from inside Iraq, making Monday's meeting between Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani all the more critical. The talks will include a discussion of regional stability and future U.S. troop deployments but will also focus on economic, trade and
President Joe Biden and his national security team monitored Iran's aerial attack against Israel on Saturday as US forces joined efforts to down explosive-laden drones launched by Tehran. With tensions at their highest since the Israel-Hamas war began six months ago, Biden pledged that American support for Israel's defense against attacks by Iran and its proxies is ironclad. US forces shot down some Iran-launched attack drones flying toward Israel, according to a US defense official and two other US officials who spoke Saturday on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. The US and Israel had been bracing for an attack for days after Iran vowed to retaliate for a suspected Israeli strike this month on an Iranian consular building in Syria that killed 12 people, including two senior Iranian generals in the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force. The US defense official said the effort to intercept Iran's attack was continuing. Biden cut short a weekend stay at his Delaware
President Joe Biden said Thursday that U.S. defense commitment was ironclad as he gathered Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House on Thursday in the midst of growing concern about provocative Chinese military action in the Indo-Pacific. The United States defense commitments to Japan and to the Philippines are ironclad. They're ironclad," Biden said as he began three-way talks at the White House with Kishida and Marcos. "As I said before, any attack on Philippine aircraft, vessels or armed forces in the South China Sea would invoke our mutual defense treaty. The White House summit was called amid growing concern about provocative Chinese action in the Pacific, which will be a large focus of the leaders' talks. The White House sees the summit as countering China's attempts at intimidation and sending a message that China is the outlier in the neighborhood, according to an administration official. President Joe Biden is ..
A Typhon unit consists of a mobile operations centre and it can fire the Standard Missile 6 and the Tomahawk cruise missile
The United States, Japan, Australia and the Philippines will hold their first joint naval exercises, including anti-submarine warfare training, in a show of force Sunday in the South China Sea where Beijing's aggressive actions to assert its territorial claims have caused alarm. The four treaty allies and security partners are holding the exercises to safeguard the rule of law that is the foundation for a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific region and uphold freedom of navigation and overflight, they said in a joint statement issued by their defence chiefs Saturday. China was not mentioned by name in the statement, but the four countries reaffirmed their stance that a 2016 international arbitration ruling, which invalidated China's expansive claims on historical grounds, was final and legally binding. China has refused to participate in the arbitration, rejected the ruling and continues to defy it. The Philippines brought its disputes with China to international arbitration in 2013 aft
The US military has said its forces destroyed one unmanned aerial vehicle in a Houthi rebel-held area of war-ravaged Yemen and another over a crucial shipping route in the Red Sea. It was the latest development in months of tension between the Iran-backed rebels and the US. The drones, which were destroyed Saturday morning, posed a threat to US and coalition forces and merchant vessels in the region, the US Central Command said on Sunday. It said that one done was destroyed over the Red Sea, while the second was destroyed on the ground as it was prepared to launch. These actions are necessary to protect our forces, ensure freedom of navigation, and make international waters safer and more secure for US, coalition, and merchant vessels, CENTCOM said. There was no comment from the Houthi rebels, which control much of Yemen's north and west. The rebels launched a campaign of drone and missile attacks on shipping in the Red Sea in November. They have also fired missiles toward Israel,
Niger's junta said on Saturday the US military presence in the country is no longer justified, making the announcement on state television after holding high-level talks with US diplomatic and military officials this week. Niger plays a central role in the US military's operations in Africa's Sahel region and is home to a major airbase. The US is concerned about the spread of jihadist violence in the region, where local groups have pledged allegiance to al-Qaida and the Islamic State extremist groups. In reading the statement, the junta's spokesman, Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane, stopped short of saying US forces should leave. He said Niger was suspending military cooperation with Washington and added that US flights over the country's territory in recent weeks were illegal. The US military in recent years began operating a major airbase in the Niger city of Agadez, some 920 kilometers (550 miles) from the capital of Niamey, using it for manned and unmanned surveillance flights and oth
The Wall Street Journal reported in November that Intel was in talks for between $3 billion and $4 billion in government subsidies from the programme
US military C-130 cargo planes on Saturday dropped food in pallets over Gaza, three US officials said, two days after more than 100 Palestinians who had surged to pull goods off an aid convoy were killed during a chaotic encounter with Israeli troops. Three planes from Air Forces Central dropped 66 bundles containing about 38,000 meals into Gaza at 8:30 am EST, according to two of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity before a public announcement. The airdrop is expected to be the first of many announced by President Joe Biden on Friday. The aid will be coordinated with Jordan, which has also conducted airdrops to deliver food to Gaza. At least 115 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded in the Thursday attack as they scrambled for aid, the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said. Israel says many of the dead were trampled in a chaotic crush for the food aid, and its troops fired warning shots after the crowd moved toward them in a threatening way. White Ho
An attack by Yemeni Houthi rebels on a Belize-flagged ship earlier this month caused an 18-mile (29-kilometer) oil slick, the US military said on Saturday. It also warned of the danger of a spill from the vessel's cargo of fertilizer. The Rubymar, a British-registered, Lebanese-operated cargo vessel, was attacked on February 18 while sailing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, US Central Command said. The missile attack forced the crew to abandon the vessel, which had been on its way to Bulgaria after leaving Khorfakkan in the United Arab Emirates. It was transporting more than 41,000 tons of fertiliser, CENTCOM said in a statement. The vessel suffered significant damage, which led to the slick, said the CENTCOM statement, warning that the ship's cargo could spill into the Red Sea and worsen this environmental disaster. The Houthis continue to demonstrate disregard for the regional impact of their indiscriminate attacks, threatening the
Yemen's Houthi rebels are suspected in an attack that damaged a Belize-flagged ship traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, authorities said early Monday. The attack on the ship came as the US military acknowledged conducting new airstrikes targeting the rebels, including one that targeted the first Houthi underwater drone seen since the rebels' began launching their attacks on shipping in November. The ship targeted in the Houthi attack Sunday reported sustaining damage after an explosion in close proximity to the vessel, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre reported. It said that the crew aboard the ship were safe. The private security firm Ambrey reported the British-registered, Lebanese-operated cargo ship had been on its way to Bulgaria after leaving Khorfakkan in the United Arab Emirates. Ship-tracking data from MarineTraffic.com analysed by The Associated Press identified the vessel targeted as
The US military conducted new airstrikes targeting Yemen's Houthi rebels, officials said Friday. American forces destroyed four explosive-loaded drone boats and seven mobile anti-ship cruise missile launchers Thursday that could target vessels in the Red Sea, the US military's Central Command said. "They presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region," the Central Command said. "These actions will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy and merchant vessels." The Houthis have not acknowledged the losses. Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea over Israel's offensive in Gaza. But they have frequently targeted vessels with tenuous or no clear links to Israel, imperiling shipping in a key route for trade among Asia, the Mideast and Europe. In recent weeks, the United States and the United Kingdom, backed by other allies, have launched airstrikes targeting Hout
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