'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'
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.
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her American counterpart James Mattis reviewed ongoing initiatives to further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation.
'Everybody spies on their friends as well as their enemies. That's the way the world works these days'
Biden's authorisation of 5,000 troops in his statement on Saturday included 1,000 who are already on the ground in Afghanistan, according to a defence official. A battalion of 1,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division were redirected to Kabul, instead of their original standby position in Kuwait.
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."
The US intends first to cripple the Afghan government financially through sanctions, freezing of assets, denial of access to international banking, etc, and then proceed to do pretty much what it wants to do with scant regard for Afghanistan's sovereignty, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Four-star General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is expected to succeed chairman Admiral Mike Mullen as the top military man in Pentagon next year, has admitted that the terrorist safe havens that exist in Pakistan are a major strategic vulnerability in achieving success in Afghanistan against the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Dr Sneha Ann Philip's elder brother Ashwin Kochiyil Philip believes she is lost, not dead. He speaks to George Joseph
The Pentagon accidentally shipped live samples of deadly anthrax to private laboratories in nine US states and bases in South Korea, forcing authorities to put up to 26 workers in post-exposure treatment.
The Taliban knows that Washington holds the key, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Afghan President Hamid Karazai ousted his security minster as well as his interior minister in an unexpected decision on Sunday.
"The only responsible course of action for them is to immediately remove all the stolen documents from their website and expunge all classified material from their computers," the Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said.
United States Vice President Joseph Biden has described WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a 'high-tech terrorist' who has put lives of people in jeopardy, and has said Washington is exploring what charges could be slapped against him.
The United States has an excellent military to military relationship with India, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
In contrast to the bare-bones price of $115 million for each Rafale fighter, the F-35A cost $94.6 million, reports Ajai Shukla.
Revisiting the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil, 15 years later.
Once installed, the LAIRCAM system increases crew-warning time, decreases false alarm rates and automatically counters advanced intermediate range missile systems.
The powerful Pentagon has been crawling before the Pakistan Army in its effort to reopen a crucial supply route, considered to be the lifeline of its thousands of troops in Afghanistan, which Islamabad had blocked last week following deaths of its three soldiers.
Ahead of his meeting with Indian counterpart A K Antony, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said the Pentagon wants to strengthen and expand its military to military ties with India.
The top US commander in Afghanistan appeared to be on his way out after the White House and Pentagon took strong objection to his controversial comments against key aids of Obama administration in an interview.
While taking a dig at Donald Trump, the defence minister hails ndia's plurality and diversity.
The United States has demanded that the whistle-blower website Wikileaks hand over all classified US military documents it has not yet published and remove existing material posted online, indicate emerging reports.
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.
Pakistan has moved 100,000 troops from its borders with India to bolster its campaign against the Taliban and other militants on its restive border with Afghanistan, the Pentagon said. The mass shifting of troops is an acknowledgement of the fact that terrorism and internal insurgency were posing more threat to Pakistan now, the Pentagon said in a report to the United States Congress.The Pentagon did not specify the regions from where the troops had been pulled out.
The United States military has conducted a humanitarian air drop in the besieged Iraqi town of Amrili, home to thousands of Shia Turkomen who have been cut off from receiving food, water, and medical supplies for two months by the militants of the Islamic State, the Pentagon said.
Asserting that the sale of F-16 to Pakistan is a sign of the burgeoning relationship between the two countries, the Pentagon on Friday said that another $600 million is en route to Islamabad in the next few weeks.At the same time, the Pentagon official observed that sending more United States personnel to the country and procuring visas for them continue to be a major bottleneck.The United States is sending nearly 50 additional personnel to Pakistan in June.
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.
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.
Pakistan must take on a substantive role in peace talks with the Taliban if the war in neighbouring Afghanistan is to be ended, United States Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said.
The finance chief of Islamic State has been killed in a United States-led coalition airstrike, an American military spokesperson said.
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.
'N Ram and I met on the lawns of Mani Shankar Aiyar's bungalow.' 'I pulled out a rolled printout from my jacket and handed it to him.' 'In the cut-throat world of journalism, this was like high treason.' 'But letting a story be killed because you can't publish it is a bigger crime than passing it to the competition,' recalls Shekhar Gupta.
The text of the logistics defence agreement has not been made public at this point of time. But Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook and US Department of Defence spokesperson, Commander Gary Ross give a gist of what it's all about.
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.
The United States has said that the threat from terrorist groups, in particular the Haqqani network, continues to emanate from inside Pakistan, dismissing top Pakistani diplomat's claim that the dreaded group responsible for audacious attacks in Afghanistan has been wiped out.
Doval will meet US Defence Secretary James Mattis on March 24, Pentagon spokesman Capt Jeff Davis told reporters, adding that they are likely to discuss a wide range of bilateral security issues and those related to the defence relationship.
