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On September 11, 2020, President Donald J. Trump will award the Medal of Honor to Sergeant Major Thomas P. Payne, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry.On October 22, 2015, during a daring nighttime hostage rescue in Kirkuk Province, Iraq, in support of Operation INHERENT RESOLVE, then-Sergeant First Class Payne led a combined assault team charged with clearing one of two buildings known to house hostages.With speed, audacity, and courage, he first led his team as they quickly cleared the assigned building, liberating 38 hostages. Then, upon hearing a request for additional assault team members to assist with clearing the...

A U.S. pilot got into the Christmas spirit Sunday when he wore Santa Claus hats on his bombing runs against the Islamic State. The Department of Defense shared some photos of an F-16 Air Force pilot wearing the bright red cap most commonly associated with the present-delivering elf. One photo shows the pilot giving the cameraman a thumbs-up as he flies to deliver his payload. An F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot dons a red Santa hat as he flies to his target. Source: Senior Airman Tyler Woodward/U.S. Department of Defense Festive as the hat may have been, the pilot was still...

Former UK Chief of Staff Lord Dannatt has called for a ground invasion against Islamic State (ISIS) on Monday, claiming that the cultural and security impact of the group calls for an international armed effort to expand beyond the current airstrike campaign. "The capture and likely destruction of the 2,000-year-old Roman colonnades at Palmyra, Syria, by Islamic State constitutes a potential cultural crime on a gigantic scale," Dannatt wrote in the Daily Mail. "These majestic ruins represent thousands of years of human civilisation and there is now surely no doubting just how great a threat IS [ISIS - ed.] poses...

An ISIS chemical weapons expert was killed in an airstrike on Saturday near Mosul, Iraq, U.S. Central Command said in a statement on Friday. Abu Malik worked in a chemical weapons production facility under Saddam Hussein before joining al Qaeda in Iraq in 2005, Central Command said. He then joined ISIS, allowing the terrorist group to make use of his experience in chemical weapons capabilities, according to Central Command. "His death is expected to temporarily degrade and disrupt the terrorist network and diminish ISIL's (ISIS') ability to potentially produce and use chemical weapons against innocent people," the statement said. The...

For months, the White House resisted calls by concerned observers to intervene in the conflict in Iraq and Syria where the Islamic State was capturing territory and massacring locals. Only after it appeared likely that the ancient Yazidi minority would be exterminated by ISIS fighters did the United States consent to intervene in Iraq. Similarly, America and its coalition allies attacked ISIS in Syria only when it seemed likely that the al-Qaeda affiliated Khorasan Group was plotting imminent attacks. This week, however, we learn that the Pentagon has effectively failed to achieve either the objective of preventing massacres in...

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has come up with a name for the American military strikes against the Islamic State: Operation Inherent Resolve. For two months, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon’s press secretary, has been batting down queries from reporters about the refusal to name the operation. After all, the reasoning went, the military loves naming operations: Desert Shield (Kuwait); Desert Storm (Iraq, the first time); Iraqi Freedom (Iraq, the second time). So at long last, there is now a name for Iraq (the third time) and Syria, announced on Wednesday by the United States Central Command in a...

So says a senior military source to Fox News. Fun fact: The Pentagon rejected “Inherent Resolve” a few weeks ago because it was, in the words of one officer, too “bleh.” The Wall Street Journal, October 3rd: One senior official said Inherent Resolve was a placeholder name and never seriously considered for the overall war effort. Other officials said had the name been better received it might well be the new war’s moniker.“It is just kind of bleh,” said a military officer…The delay over naming the Iraq and Syria mission has led some to suggest politics is at play. The...

Two months after American bombs and missiles began pounding fighters of the so-called Islamic State, President Barack Obama’s undeclared war in Iraq and Syria finally has a name: Operation Inherent Resolve. The Wall Street Journal had reported on Oct. 3 that the name had been considered and rejected, with one unnamed military officer saying “it is just kind of bleh.” The long search for a name had sparked a flurry of jokes on Twitter, where one leading tongue-in-cheek suggestion was that it be called “Operation Hey Wasn’t That My Humvee” – a reference to U.S. airstrikes hitting Islamic State fighters...