Blog Posts

"Feb. 23 was the 75th anniversary of World War II’s most famous photograph, of Marines planting the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi. It is, in a sense, a picture of the corps’ future, as the current commandant envisions it."

"The United States will hold talks with Iraq in June on the future of its troop presence in the country, whose parliament has voted to expel them, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday."

"The Pentagon is considering new steps to retain uniformed service members, including the potential revival of the military’s controversial 'stop-loss' policy, as the coronavirus crisis limits the arrival of new troops and disrupts its personnel pipeline."

"Last month, both sides of Libya’s now one-year-old war for Tripoli again agreed to a cease-fire as the coronavirus pandemic spread around the world. But since then, bombings can be heard daily from Tripoli homes as the fighting escalates and the health care system crumbles."

"Human Rights Watch is urging the Afghan government to bring war crimes charges against the captured leader of the Islamic State of Khorasan Province, an affiliate of the extremist group Islamic State.

"A United Nations investigation has concluded the Syrian government or its allies was likely responsible for attacks on a school, a hospital, and two other civilian facilities, but the probe avoided specifically blaming Syria's main military sponsor, Russia, drawing rebukes from rights activists."

"Afghanistan’s fragile peace process appeared to be in danger Tuesday as the Taliban said it was breaking off talks with the government about a prisoner exchange, which is a key part of a deal the insurgents signed with the United States."

"U.S. Africa Command said an April 2 airstrike in Somalia killed a high-ranking and foundational member of the al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremist group known as al-Shabab."

"A planned $1 billion cut in U.S. aid to Afghanistan would come from funds for Afghan security forces, according to three U.S. sources, a step experts said would undercut both Kabul’s ability to fight the Taliban and its leverage to negotiate a peace deal with them."

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"Social distancing is a luxury you don’t have aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. So a word about Thursday’s firing of a Navy officer who showed up in the news asking for help containing a coronavirus outbreak on his ship, the USS Theodore Roosevelt."

"The head of the United Nations has urged a global cease-fire. So has the Pope. Yet violence keeps battering swaths of Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe as governments struggle to fight both insurgents and the coronavirus pandemic."

"Academic publishing timelines being what they are, I finished The Dragons and the Snakes — the book about how adversaries have evolved since the Cold War — a year ago, well before the coronavirus crisis. Yet that crisis, along with the oil shock triggered by Moscow’s sudden exit from its OPEC-Plus deal with Saudi Arabia and the resulting collapse in global oil prices, reinforces several of the book’s arguments."

"The head of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate has been arrested along with 19 other militants, Afghan officials said Saturday."

"The U.S. handed over the al-Taqaddum Air Base to Iraqi forces on Saturday — it’s the fourth base to be handed over to Iraqi Security Forces over the last several weeks."

"In nations ranging from Mali to the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Sudan, years of unrest have weakened governments, deepened hunger and malnutrition, and left crowded camps of displaced people with scant access to health care and hygiene services."

"With the services on track to report more than 1,000 cases of COVID-19 by the end of the week, military senior leadership is looking at a tough choice."

"The Pakistani authorities said Friday that four men had been rearrested in the abduction and killing of the American journalist Daniel Pearl after a court overturned their convictions just the day before. The government will appeal their acquittals to Pakistan’s Supreme Court, officials said."

"Abrams, who spoke to VOA and CNN in a joint interview Thursday in Seoul, commands approximately 28,000 U.S. troops in South Korea. It was effectively the first U.S. community to be on the front lines against the coronavirus. Its efforts so far to contain the outbreak provide important insights in the global fight against COVID-19."

Statement from the Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas B. Modly, regarding the relief of the Commanding Officer of USS Theodore Roosevelt.

"American military commanders are using the restrictions imposed by the spread of the coronavirus to reshape the deployment of Special Operations troops all over the world, according to military officials. The decisions mean the withdrawal of elite commandos from some conflict zones and shuttering longstanding missions."

"NATO foreign ministers have tasked the alliance’s top military officer to help boost the 30 allies’ response to the coronavirus pandemic."

"Iran continues to escalate proxy attacks against the U.S. in Iraq, demonstrating that it remains undeterred despite the January 3 strike that killed IRGC - Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani and key Iraqi proxy leader Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis and subsequent U.S. strikes."

"Pakistan has overturned the death sentence of the man convicted of killing US journalist Daniel Pearl, defence lawyers have told reporters."

"Both the Islamic State group and al-Qaida see the coronavirus as a threat, but some of their fighters also see the upheaval from the pandemic as an opportunity to win over more supporters and strike harder than before."