(Last Updated On: April 23, 2021)
U.S. commanders have asked for the deployment of an aircraft carrier to help protect US and NATO troops as they withdraw from Afghanistan, two senior Defense officials told NBC News.
According to NBC, with fighter squadrons at the ready, an aircraft carrier in the region could provide additional cover in case U.S. and other NATO forces come under fire as they withdraw.
The request, reports NBC, underscores concerns at the Pentagon that the Taliban may choose to launch attacks on NATO troops as they pull out.
The U.S. Naval Institute’s USNI News meanwhile reported the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group’s current stop in the Middle East could be extended to help cover the withdrawal of foreign troops.
7 shares
Then-Marine Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie speaks during a media availability at the Pentagon in Washington, April 14, 2018. (Alex Brandon/AP)
The head of American forces in the Middle East on Thursday supported the Israel Defense Forces’ assertion that it was an errant Syrian anti-aircraft missile that streaked across the country during the night, setting off sirens in southern Israel that were followed by loud explosions.
Speaking before the US Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said the incident “reflects incompetence in Syrian air defense, where they were responding to Israeli strikes on targets in Syria. I do not believe it was an intentional attack but just rather lack of capability.”
Head of US forces in Mideast blames incompetence for Syrian missile that landed in Israel timesofisrael.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timesofisrael.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
China poses longer-range threat, says USSPACECOM chief
21 April 2021
by Gabriel Dominguez
As the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues to modernise, an increasingly capable and lethal Chinese joint force “will almost certainly be able to hold US and allied forces at risk at greater distances from the Chinese mainland”, US Army General James Dickinson, the commander of the US Space Command (USSPACECOM), said on 20 April.
In a written statement to the US Senate Armed Services Committee the commander said that China, which poses “a major security challenge and remains a long-term strategic competitor to the United States”, is focused on developing and fielding advanced military capabilities in all warfighting domains to build what it terms a ”world-class military”.
China’s deceitful expansion tactics
By Joseph Bosco
From salami-slice aggression to invasion by swarm, China continues its successful gray-zone expansionism in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
While modulating its activities to evade a significant Western response, Beijing is creating facts on the ground, on the ocean and in the air in each of the region’s hot spots while encouraging Pyongyang to do the same on the Korean Peninsula.
Despite Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) promise to the administration of former US president Barack Obama, the communist government continues to occupy territory it seized from the Philippines, a US treaty ally. Contrary to a sweeping repudiation by the UN arbitral tribunal, Beijing builds and militarizes artificial islands in the South China Sea that it falsely claims as part of its vast maritime domain.