Trump administration officials are in discussions with the Taliban about re-establishing a small U.S. military presence at Afghanistan’s Bagram Air Base as a launch point for counterterrorism operations, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations.
Three Russian fighter jets violated Estonian airspace Sept. 19 in a move the Baltic nation called “unprecedentedly brazen” and that appears to be the latest test of NATO’s defenses by the Kremlin’s forces. NATO aircraft intercepted the jets, the military alliance's spokesperson Allison Hart said on X.
President Donald Trump said Sept. 19 the U.S. military has carried out its third fatal strike against an alleged drug smuggling vessel this month. Trump in a social media posting said the strike killed three and was carried out against a vessel “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility.” He did not provide more precise details about the location of the strike.
The WindRunner will be able to take off and land from unpaved runways about 1,800 meters long, or just over 5,900 feet. Those qualities along with the plane’s formidable cargo volume—which Lundstrom said is 12 times that of an Air Force C-17 Globemaster—means “there’s a lot of pretty interesting military payloads that you can move as well.”
The Pentagon is getting a new cyber policy leader after the Senate voted to confirm Katherine Sutton and a slew of other nominees for high-level government jobs on Sept. 18.
Washington’s fall defense trade show season kicks off Sept. 22 with the Air &Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, just outside the U.S. capital at scenic National Harbor, Md. But it’s an unusual time for the Air Force, as turmoil in the top ranks threatens to derail the service’s major modernization plans.
China is “intentionally trying to do things” in space “so we don’t see it,” from changing the brightness of their satellites to maneuvering in what it believes are the United States’ blind spots, and the U.S. Space Force has to “keep pace, and we’ve got to keep advancing our capabilities so that that’s harder and harder for them to do,” the Chief of Space Operations said this week.
Berlin's tensions with Paris over Europe’s flagship €100 billion fighter jet program are pushing Germany to explore how to replace France with Sweden or even the U.K. unless a deal is struck by the end of the year. Launched in 2017, the Future Combat Air System is designed to replace the Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon by 2040.
American and Iraqi forces killed the head of the Islamic State group’s international operations in an early morning raid in Syria. The Iraqi Counterterrorism Service announced that U.S. troops and its forces carried out a dawn raid inside Syria that resulted in the death of Omar Abdul Qader, ISIS’s head of operations and external security. The operation is the latest in the past three months to kill or capture top members of the terror group still active inside Syria.
The Pentagon unveiled new restrictions on reporters covering the Defense Department on Sept. 19, asking them to pledge not to publish information that has not been authorized by the administration or risk losing access to the building.
The U.S. military strikes this month on three boats that Trump administration officials have asserted were smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea have cast a spotlight on the sizable naval armada and aerial fleet of spy aircraft the Pentagon has dispatched to the region in what it says is a counternarcotics and counterterrorism mission.
Many Airmen do things during their service that are worthy of resounding across generations, but for some reason get lost in the sauce. Here are five of those lesser-known and seldom-told tales about noteworthy Air Force legends who served around the Wild Blue Yonder.
