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The Pentagon has placed its elite cadre of special operations teams on full alert to launch preemptive attacks against suspected al Qaeda targets across the globe, according to reports. The American special forces teams have spent the past week waiting for U.S. military and intelligence officials to confirm the whereabouts of the terror cell plotting to attack U.S. diplomatic outposts in the Mideast and North Africa. Unnamed sources told CNN on Monday that the teams were poised to carry out the preemptive strikes, but declined to comment on where the U.S. forces were located or which potential targets the Pentagon...

The Obama administration continues to ramp up its military-response capabilities in Africa, where it is now looking for contractor support to transport U.S. Africa Command troops, weaponry and explosives. The U.S. Transportation Command on behalf of AFRICOM is soliciting help from private aircraft providers who can move U.S. troops and supplies in the Central African nations of Uganda, Central Africa Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. The development comes at a time when the Department of Defense simultaneously is strengthening its ability – also with contractor assistance – to retrieve soldiers trapped and injured in hot spots...

July 5, 2013 Obama Inc. Blocking Access to AFRICOM Colonel with Benghazi Info Daniel Greenfield A suspicious mind would suspect that Obama Inc. has something to hide about Benghazi and doesn’t want to risk having the same kind of testimony from the military end that we saw from top diplomatic personnel who turned whistleblowers.Fortunately I’m not the suspicious type at all. I’m sure this is all just some sort of misunderstanding involving the DOD being unable to find one of its own key people. Marine Corps Col. George Bristol was in a key position in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)...

Marine Corps Col. George Bristol was in a key position in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) chain of command the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. As such, he's high on the list of people that some Republican members of Congress want to interview. But they don't know where he is and the Pentagon isn't telling.

[HASC] - The Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations received testimony in a classified briefing from three key figures involved in the response to the attack on Americans in Benghazi. General Carter Ham (ret), former Commander, AFRICOM; Lieutenant Colonel S.E. Gibson, former commander of the site security team at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli; and Rear Admiral Brian Losey, former commander, Special Operations Command Africa, all offered accounts of U.S. force posture and planning ahead of the attack, and actions taken during and after the attack. While the subcommittee will continue to carry out appropriate oversight, today’s witnesses did...

Below is from my FNC colleague Justin Fishel: Subject: Fox First: General Carter Ham to testify on Benghazi for first time next week Fox News has learned that the House Armed Services Committee will hold a classified briefing next Weds June 26 at 9:00 on Benghazi. Briefers will include: Gen. Carter Ham (ret.) He was head of AFRICOM during Benghazi attack. LTC Gibson RADM Brian Losey – Special Operations Command Africa This is being coordinated by the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee of the HASC. It will be closed door but will be the first time Ham has been questioned by...

The U.S. military has alerted two elite military units in Europe to be on standby if needed to respond to a deteriorating security situation in Tripoli, Fox News has learned. In recent days both the U.S. embassy and British embassy in Libya have removed non-essential staff from their embassies. A specialized Marine unit based in Moron, Spain, is in the process of being repositioned closer to Libya; and in Stuttgart, Germany, a special operations force assigned to AFRICOM has been placed on heightened alert.

The Obama regime official story about the events that transpired on 9/11/12 continues to unravel, and despite Jay Carney's insistence that it was "a long time ago" facts keep crawling out from under the rubble of the consulate. Testimony of those involved directly with the Benghazi disaster conflicts sharply with the position of the Obama regime. A stand down orderThe Obama regime has repeatedly denied that a stand down order was issued but the No. 2 Libya embassy official disputes it. The deputy of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens has told congressional investigators that a team of Special Forces prepared...

Full Title: Army general fired over charges of alcohol and sexual misconduct as military cleans out corruption in its African Command An Army major general with the U.S. Africa Command has been relieved of his post in connection with alcohol and sexual misconduct charges, defense officials said. Officials said Maj. Gen. Ralph Baker, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, was fired from his command last Thursday, and he was fined a portion of his pay by Gen. Carter Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, after an administrative hearing and review. The officials said Thursday that Ham lost...

The commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa has been fired for misconduct. Army Maj. Gen. Ralph Baker was relieved of his duties on March 28, according to U.S. Africa Command spokesman Benjamin Benson. Gen. Carter Ham, AFRICOM commander, lost confidence in Baker's ability to lead, but the command isn't releasing any further details at this time because the alleged misconduct is being appealed, Benson said. "The allegations remain under adjudication, so it would be inappropriate to comment at this time," he said. Baker assumed command less than a year ago last May. This incident follows on the...

The commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa has been fired for misconduct. Army Maj. Gen. Ralph Baker was relieved of his duties on March 28, according to U.S. Africa Command spokesman Benjamin Benson. Gen. Carter Ham, AFRICOM commander, lost confidence in Baker's ability to lead, but the command isn't releasing any further details at this time because the alleged misconduct is being appealed, Benson said.

Military Pact With Niger Brings American Forces Closer to Conflict in Mali. The U.S. signed an agreement Monday with the West African country of Niger that clears the way for a stepped-up American military presence on the edges of the conflict in neighboring Mali. The U.S. and France are moving to create an intelligence hub in Niger that could include a base, near Mali's border, for American drones that could monitor al Qaeda-linked militants in Mali's vast desert north, U.S. officials said. The moves show the extent to which the U.S. and France are girding for what could be an...

In the last few days, Obama administration officials have frequently faced the question: Is the fighting in Libya a war? From military officers to White House spokesmen up to the president himself, the answer is no. But that leaves the question: What is it? In a briefing on board Air Force One Wednesday, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes took a crack at an answer. "I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone," Rhodes...

The United States military is preparing to establish a drone base in northwest Africa so that it can increase surveillance missions on the local affiliate of Al Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups that American and other Western officials say pose a growing menace to the region. For now, officials say they envision flying only unarmed surveillance drones from the base, though they have not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens. If the base is approved, the most likely location for it would be in Niger, a largely desert nation on the eastern border...

“LET ME underscore the importance of the United States continuing to lead in the Middle East, North Africa and around the world,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday in testimony to Congress. “When America is absent, especially from unstable environments, there are consequences. Extremism takes root, our interests suffer and our security at home is threatened.” The outgoing secretary’s statements were particularly striking when compared with President Obama’s inaugural address Monday, which promised to end “a decade of war” in favor of nation-building at home, and with the White House’s current approach to Mali. ...White House policymakers argue...

Gen. Carter Ham is head of the U.S. African command. An Army brigade from Fort Riley, Kan., will begin helping train African militaries beat back a growing terrorist threat posed by al-Qaida. An Army brigade from Fort Riley, Kan., some 4,000, soldiers, will begin helping to train African militaries. The idea is to help African troops beat back a growing terrorist threat posed by al-Qaida. The American troops will head over in small teams over the course of the next year. The Dagger Brigade returned to Kansas last year from a deployment to Iraq, where it trained and advised that...

The top US military commander in Africa warned Monday against any premature military action in Mali, even as he said that al-Qaida linked extremists have strengthened their hold on the northern part of the country. Army Gen. Carter Ham said that any military intervention done now would likely fail and would set the precarious situation there back "even farther than they are today."

French fighter jets struck deep inside Islamist strongholds in northern Mali on Sunday, shoving aside months of international hesitation about storming the region after every other effort by the United States and its allies to thwart the extremists had failed. For years, the United States tried to stem the spread of Islamic militancy in the region by conducting its most ambitious counterterrorism program ever across these vast, turbulent stretches of the Sahara. But as insurgents swept through the desert last year, commanders of this nation’s elite army units, the fruit of years of careful American training, defected when they were...

BANGKOK — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has ordered the Pentagon to find out why so many generals and admirals have become embroiled in legal and ethical problems, a trend exacerbated by recent investigations of two of the military’s best-known commanders. The Pentagon disclosed Panetta’s directive on Thursday after he arrived in Thailand as part of a visit to Asia. But aides insisted that he had been considering the review for some time and that it was not prompted by revelations that the FBI has been investigating former CIA director David H. Petraeus, a retired Army general, and Marine Gen....

Fox military analyst Col. David Hunt checked in with us again after the revelation that there were multiple listening posts which heard the cries for help from the US Embassy in Libya, and none of them did anything.