The Obama Administration has indicated that it apparently has no problem with India training Afghan security forces but that is a sovereign decision to be taken by the government in Kabul, Washington is aware that such training of Afghans by India is already taking place.
In the story, one top McChrystal adviser refers to Vice President Biden as 'Bite Me'. A McChrystal adviser says that in his first meeting with the general, President Obama 'clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his f---ing war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.'
The prime mission behind the new Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Professor Gamini Lakshman Peiris' meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is to repair the strained relations between the US and Sri Lanka, which took a beating last year when the Sri Lankan forces were crushing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The US had alleged that there were large scale human rights violations during the military offensive against the tigers.
The US army has appointed a senior general to direct and oversee its cyber warfare division. General Keith B Alexander has been entrusted with the Pentagon's new Cyber Command, the Guardian reported.
Pakistan's Tehreek-e-Taliban is not only trying to overthrow the government in Islamabad, but is also launching attack against other countries, including the US, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday.
The move comes close on the release of a report by Pentagon, which suggested that China has moved its new advanced longer range CSS-5 missiles close to its border with India and developed contingency plans to shift airborne forces to the region at short notice.
There is no evidence so far that anybody in a senior position in Pakistan Army or the Inter-Services Intelligence had any knowledge about the presence of Osama bin Laden at a safe house in an Islamabad suburb, a top Pentagon official has said.
Having steered clear of North Waziristan for years, Pakistan army is contemplating an offensive into the restive area fearing that it may have become a "witches brew of jihadi groups".
The United States has rejected claims that it was under pressure from India not to provide drone technology to Pakistan.
It was the Internet that helped the Al Qaeda to contact, recruit, train and equip Nigerian 'underwear' bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab 'within weeks' to try to blow up a United States plane on Christmas Day, a top Pentagon official has said.This reflects how the extremist groups have been increasingly using Internet as a recruitment tool, which otherwise could have taken months, if not years, to hire and train a terror suspect, said Garry Reid.
US will supply sophisticated laser-guided-bomb kits, 12 American-made surveillance drones and 18 late-model F-16 fighters to boost Pakistani forces capability to strike in remote tribal areas, a development which could spark unease in New Delhi.
Shishir Nagaraja, currently associated with the Information Trust Institute of the University of Illinois (US), tells rediff.com, not only about the Google episode, but also his experience with the Office of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala and the world of hackers, in general.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday held a meeting with visiting Chinese General Xu Caiho during which they discussed smoother military cooperation and a combined strategy to create a more stable and secure environment in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In the wake of wide scale criticism and warnings by a top United Nations official over the use of unmanned drones to target militants in Pakistan's lawless tribal region and other troubled areas across the world, the US is now planning to use manned spy aircrafts in the 'war on terror.'
America's Afghan war costs are showing no signs of letting up. And now it has overtaken previous records of Iraq war.
Any form of entanglement with India or the US on the strategic plane will be anathema to Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa rulers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Having pumped billions of dollars in military assistance and rushing guerrilla warfare experts to train soldiers to shore up Pakistan's capabilities to tackle militancy, influential US Congressmen and Pentagon officials feel that the nation is still closer to siege.
'Pakistan has worsted India in the Afghan proxy war and the defeat becomes a template of regional politics,' points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'Analysts see BECA as a 'force multiplier' for India.' 'But China too is known to have such capabilities.' 'The military gap with China will continue to remain a fact of life, BECA notwithstanding,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
While the Pentagon has asserted that the US is "comfortable" over the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal and Islamabad has rubbished a report that militants attacked its nuclear facilities at least three times, an erstwhile CIA analyst has argued that what should elicit more concern among the international community is terrorists in Pakistan acquiring material for a "dirty bomb".
India must present its demands of America confidently, instead of fearing that its pocket will somehow be picked, says Ajai Shukla.
Trump tweeted, hours after Pentagon announced it had reached an understanding with China for the return of the drone.
The lawmakers have asked the Defence Secretary to give full consideration to the soldiers' requests. They, in their letter, cited other Sikhs' service in the US Armed Forces and in its allies' militaries to support their argument that these men should be permitted to serve.
President Barack Obama met his National Security Council team at the White House to review potential holiday threats and discuss America's security posture in Pakistan in view of the horrific terrorist attack on a school in Peshawar that left 141 dead, mostly children.
"The howitzers will assist the Indian army to develop and enhance standardisation and to improve interoperability with US Soldiers and Marines who use the M777 as their primary means of indirect fire," the Defence Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement to the Congress.
Obama, officials told New York Times, will announce the creation of a White House office -- reporting to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council -- that will coordinate a multibillion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers and protect systems that run the stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.
The US president said that there is a lot of "dislike" (between India and Pakistan).
Pakistan is scheduled to get 18 of the Block 52 F-16s, Oliver Hazard Perry Class frigate by fall and is expected to receive Shadow Drones within a year, a Pentagon official has said.
Fourteen years ago on September 11, terrorists hijacked four passenger planes and targeted the United States, killing 3,000 people in the attacks.
United States Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, has profusely apologised and expeditiously gone on damage control mode after stating that 'a rising India' is a grave threat to the US. The Senator from Texas states that the F-22's are "important to our national security because we're not just fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We're fighting --we have graver threats and greater threats than that: From a rising India, with increased exercise of military power'.
With 80 percent of US casualties in Afghanistan caused by roadside bombs planted by Taliban and Al Qaeda militants, the Pentagon is creating a department-wide task force to find ways to counter the menace.
'The US and India continue to use their deepening relationship to build new partnerships within and beyond the Indo-Pacific.'
West Africa is in the midst of the worst Ebola outbreak in history. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that some 9,000 people have contracted the disease so far. Heath officials put the death toll at around 4,500, meaning that one in two people who get Ebola in this outbreak die. The odds are not good.
Members of his team and industry were right now in India, US Defence Secretary Ash Carter disclosed, 'looking at the potential co-production of fighter aircraft.'
Pakistan has used a substantial amount of military aid from the United States, meant to fight terrorism, to build up its army with modern weapons and equipment for a conventional warfare against India, Pentagon documents have revealed. All this was done with the knowledge of the George W Bush administration, which not only provided $1.9 billion in Foreign Military Financing but also signed agreements with Pakistan for military sales worth nearly $5 billion during the period.
Overriding strong objections from Islamabad, the United States has conveyed to Pakistan that missile strikes to take out high value militant targets inside its territory would continue. This decision of the new US administration was made known by the Defence Secretary Robert Gates in his testimony before the Senate armed services committee, where he also outlined that Pentagon was preparing to send two more army brigades to Afghanistan.
United States President Barack Obama is sending a team of officials led by Richard Holbrooke, his special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, to visit refugee camps housing lakhs of people who have been displaced by the military offensive in Swat and adjoining areas of the North Western Frontier Province. Holbrooke is expected to have a first hand assessment of the situation and then recommend how best the US can accelerate relief measures.
