North Korea on Friday launched an ICBM for the second time in a month.
Top Pentagon leaders have warned US lawmakers against including their "pet projects" in the annual defence budget, particularly at a time when it is struggling to save money in view of the tough economic environment.
The growing influence of the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon in shaping relations with Pakistan was a key reason behind United States Ambassador Cameron Munter's decision to quit his post, the media in Islamabad claimed on Wednesday.
The Taliban knows that Washington holds the key, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In a fresh jolt to United States-Pakistan ties, the Pentagon on Monday said it is withdrawing its team of negotiators from Pakistan for a "short period of time", after talks failed to lift the six-month blockade of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supply routes to war-torn Afghanistan.
The US military fired an intercontinental ballistic missile-type weapon on Tuesday from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. It then fired a missile to intercept it from Vandenberg air force base in California.
The United States and Afghanistan have completed their joint fact-finding investigation into the incident of desecration of the Quran by US soldiers last month, the Pentagon has said.
'If the Chinese are bringing Pakistan more 'behind the curtain,' in terms of intelligence and military cooperation, it will be tailored to their common interests like confronting India over territorial disputes'
The Japanese government warned the people in northern Japan to prepare for a potential incoming missile from Pyongyang.
The Pentagon on Tuesday said it had shared with Pakistan in recent years the indications of Islamabad's "complicity" with extremist groups, renewing top United States commander Admiral Mike Mullen's allegations that Inter-Services Intelligence was conniving with the Haqqani network in Afghanistan.
Pakistan is refusing to participate in the United States-led probe into North Atlantic Treaty Organisation bombing that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead along the Afghanistan border last week, the Pentagon has said.
The United States is set to unveil its new defence strategy on Thursday that will guide Pentagon budget cuts in coming years and is expected to end the decade-old policy of maintaining a force capable of fighting two wars at once.
Praising India's "constructive" role in the reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, the Pentagon in a report told the United States Congress that New Delhi has now expressed an interest to help strengthen the capabilities of the Afghan National Security Forces.
Having lost out on the multi-billion Indian Air Force contract, the Pentagon said American fighter jets -- F16 and F18 -- would have provided India unbeatable platforms with proven technologies at a competitive price.
Observing that its relationship with New Delhi and Islamabad is not a zero sum game and that it values ties with both, the Pentagon said safe havens that exist in Pakistan are still an obstacle to ultimate success in Afghanistan.
A high degree of mistrust continues to strain the bilateral relationship between India and China, the Pentagon has informed the United States Congress. New Delhi remains concerned by China's close military ties with Pakistan and its growing footprint in the Indian Ocean, Central Asia and Africa, Pentagon said in its annual report.
The US has deployed its elite counter-terrorism unit Delta Force for covert operations in Iraq to capture or kill high-ranking Islamic State operatives and gather intelligence, according to a media report.
The United States has decided to suspend its military aid to Pakistan following Islamabad's request for a "significant cutback" of American military trainers on its soil, the Pentagon said on Sunday. "A series of events over the last eight months have affected our bilateral relations. As a result, the Pakistan Army has requested a significant cutback of US military trainers, and limited our ability to obtain visas," said Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan.
'Everybody spies on their friends as well as their enemies. That's the way the world works these days'
Amid growing tension between the civilian and military leadership in Pakistan, United States has said it had not sought or received any assurances from the Pakistani army that it would not stage a coup.
The debris from China's disintegrating Long March rocket entered the Earth's atmosphere on Sunday and reportedly fell into the Indian Ocean area close to the Maldives, the country's space agency said, ending an anxious week as people and the governments wondered where and when the space junk would fall.
The defence ministry is finalising a decision to allow the FGM-148 Javelin missile, built by US companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, into a contest to supply the Indian Army with anti-tank guided missiles. This is bad news for Israelis
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her American counterpart James Mattis reviewed ongoing initiatives to further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation.
US Special Forces have moved into Syria's Raqqa area and taking the fight to the terror group.
The Pentagon has ruled out media coverage of a ceremony marking the return of 30 US soldiers, including 22 Navy SEALs, who were killed when the helicopter they were travelling in was shot down in Afghanistan.
In a scathing indictment of Pakistan for continuing to host terrorist safe havens within its borders, United States Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, took strong issue with senior Pentagon officials.
The United States has announced the end of its 20-year-old war in Afghanistan as the last American military flight flew out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul shortly before the August 31 deadline.
The abduction and the subsequent murder of noted Pakistani journalist, Syed Saleem Shahzad might have been approved by the Pakistan government, a top United States military leader said on Friday.
The Taliban is on the run and the US forces have reversed the momentum, said a top Pentagon official on Monday, cautioning against reading too much into a single combat incident in which more than 30 US soldiers was killed in Afghanistan.
India is struggling with a second wave of the pandemic with more than 3,00,000 daily new coronavirus cases being reported in the past few days, and hospitals in several states are reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen and beds.
Senator John McCain, the ranking Republican on the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, has warned that despite all of America's military operations in Afghanistan, and the claim by Pentagon officials that Al Qaeda and the Taliban is on the run, a failing and instable Pakistan with terrorist safe havens within its borders, remain a key challenge.
The Biden administration has come under criticism from several quarters, including from members and supporters of the Democratic party, for not releasing surplus COVID-19 vaccines to India when the country is experiencing its worst-ever public health crisis.
The transcript of the US Department of Defence background briefing with senior defence officials from the Pentagon and senior Intelligence officials by telephone on US operations involving Osama bin Laden
More than a week after coalition forces led by United States launched a military operation in crisis-struck Libya, the cost to US taxpayers has already reached a whopping $600 million (about Rs 27,000 crore), as per Pentagon estimates, ABC reported.
A Sikh can be allowed to enter the United States military with turban and beard, the Pentagon has said, noting that the approval in this regard would be given on a case by case basis and there is no universal or automatic approval to the new relaxed religious norms.
Admiral Philips Davidson, Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, also told the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that China's recent activities along the Line of Actual Control have opened India's eyes to what cooperative effort with others might mean for their own defensive needs as he observed that New Delhi, in the very near term, will deepen its engagement with the Quad.
Once installed, the LAIRCAM system increases crew-warning time, decreases false alarm rates and automatically counters advanced intermediate range missile systems.
Pakistan's negative perception of India's role in Afghanistan is a matter of "continuing concern," a Pentagon official has said, while appreciating the development assistance being offered by New Delhi to the war-torn country.
The Pentagon has termed as 'ridiculous' the notion that its officials were involved in recent rape allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Recently, Swedish authorities had issued an arrest warrant against Assange, but they revoked it soon after. "Any thought that the defence department may be part of such a conspiracy (rape allegations against Assange) is absurd," Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman said, adding, "No. That's ridiculous."
In contrast to the bare-bones price of $115 million for each Rafale fighter, the F-35A cost $94.6 million, reports Ajai Shukla.
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