The White House issued its account of the decisions that preceded the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, as Congress is moving to investigate the Biden administration’s policy making on that crisis. The 12-page summary, which was issued April 6, blames the Trump administration for putting ...
The U.S. created an Afghan air force that was too technologically advanced for its native country to sustain, then pulled the rug out from under it, according to a U.S. government inspector general report. A blistering, 148-page document by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan ...
The Pentagon continues a “relentless focus” on counterterrorism, as evidenced by recent successful operations against al-Qaida and ISIS, even as the nation continues to debate the cost and meaning of America’s longest war, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said on the first anniversary of ...
Aug. 30 marks the one-year anniversary of the end of Operation Allies Refuge (OAR), the final act in the longest war in U.S. history. Historians will long study the United States’ post-9/11 Global War on Terrorism and, in particular, the failed, two-decade effort to plant ...
In a hangar flanked by F-15s and Apache helicopters at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich was sworn in as the new commander of the Ninth Air Force, Air Forces Central, July 21. Grynkewich will be responsible for ...
The Islamic State’s Khorasan branch, responsible for the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members during the evacuation from Kabul, could develop the capacity to strike outside Afghanistan within “six to 12 months,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl warned. Testifying to the ...
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Oct. 4 and said the following day that after two decades in Afghanistan, NATO will redirect its resources to defense of its 30 member countries. That will ...
The building shook for only an instant and the soot from the smoke was clean within 48 hours, retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula recalled two decades after the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. But America’s national security priorities had been lost in the fog ...
Capping his Gulf state tour in Kuwait, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III visited Marines present during the Aug. 26 Kabul airport attack and warned that Al-Qaida may emerge in the chaos now enveloping Afghanistan. “The whole community is kind of watching to see what ...
President Joe Biden spoke to the American people Aug. 31, one day after the final military flight left Kabul, to say that some 200 Americans remained in Afghanistan but that the military mission had ended and “over-the-horizon” capabilities will now fight terrorism in the country. ...
The final U.S. Air Force C-17 has cleared Afghanistan airspace, completing the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan and marking the end of nearly 20 years of war, U.S. Central Command boss Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. announced Aug. 30.
With a rapidly approaching deadline to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said the evacuation mission is on pace to finish by Aug. 31, though he has asked the Pentagon for contingency plans should that change. U.S. and coalition efforts have evacuated ...