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n Air Force Special Operations Command MC-130 on a humanitarian flight in Mali last week was struck by small arms fire, causing minor damage to its fuselage, reports Stars and Stripes. The MC-130 from the 352nd Special Operations Group at RAF Mildenhall, Britain, was on its second run to a military garrison that had been under siege from an armed force, possibly Taureg rebels. The AFSOC aircraft and aircrew were in Mali to participate in a bilateral exercise called Flintlock 2007, when the Mali government asked for assistance to resupply its garrison.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week released strategies meant to focus the Pentagon’s “alphabet soup” of innovation organizations and proliferate artificial intelligence—moves that experts say could provide the structure needed to make the military’s efforts to integrate and field new technology more effective.
