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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department and Pentagon ordered the families of U.S. diplomats and military personnel Tuesday to leave posts in southern Turkey due to security fears. The two agencies said dependents of American staffers at the U.S. consulate in Adana, the Incirlik air base and two other locations must leave. The so-called "ordered departure" notice means the relocation costs will be covered by the government. In a statement, the military's European Command said the step "allows for the deliberate, safe return of family members from these areas due to continued security concerns in the region."

Pentagon and State Department order families of U.S. troops and diplomats to leave Turkey By Dan Lamothe March 29 at 12:20 PM The United States will withdraw virtually all family members of U.S. troops and diplomats from its installations in Turkey, U.S. officials said Tuesday, citing security concerns as the campaign against the Islamic State continues. The military decision was announced on the blog for U.S. European Command, which also instituted travel restrictions in Brussels last week after a terrorist attack killed 38 people, including three suicide bombers. At least four Americans were killed and about a dozen more were...

Clashes between militias trained by the CIA and the Pentagon are intensifying as bitter fighting has broken out near Aleppo and the Turkish border. Chicago Tribune: The fighting has intensified over the past two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other as they have maneuvered through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed. In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving...

Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war. The fighting has intensified over the last two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed. In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called...

Defense Secretary Ash Carter used his personal email account for government business for nearly a year, until December 2015, when news reports revealed the practice, according to hundreds of Carter emails released by the Defense Department. The 1,336 pages of emails and attachments from Carter’s personal account were released late Friday in response to Freedom of Information Act requests by The Associated Press and other news organizations. None contained classified information, and most pertained to routine business such as scheduling and logistics. The Pentagon has long banned the use of personal email for official business. Carter’s use of his personal...

Will the Joint Chiefs ever make a stand against the Obama Administration? Will the Joint Chiefs ever stand up against the insane social engineering policies which are eviscerating the military like a late night Ginsu chef? Last September, General Martin Dempsey retired as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and escaped in a rowboat down the Potomac as the Pentagon began to sink into the cold depths of the wide, grey river. Dempsey’s reign of cowardice and political correctness was a genuine disaster for the US military. Under Dempsey and his sidekick, Army Chief of Staff, General Ray Odierno,...

President Obama wants the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) defeated by the end of his term, Defense Secretary Ash Carter says. "That´s what he said he wants. That´s what he told me and [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford]. He said, ´Get this done as soon as possible. I´d like to not leave this to my successor,´ " Carter said Friday an event hosted by Politico. He added that Obama called for the process to be accelerated last fall — about a year after the U.S. first began its counter-ISIS campaign. The administration now has...

Against the advice of its own panel of outside experts, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency is forgoing tests meant to ensure that a critical component of the nation’s homeland missile defense system will work as intended. The tests that are being skipped would evaluate the reliability of small motors designed to help keep rocket interceptors on course as they fly toward incoming warheads. (Snip) But in order to stay on schedule for a planned expansion of the GMD system, none of the 40 thrusters that are being installed on 10 new interceptors will undergo hot-fire testing, government officials told the...

A security crisis in North Africa is on the verge of exploding while defense bureaucrats in Northern Virginia postpone sending long-promised support to an embattled ally. The crisis centers on Tunisia, which finds itself in the gunsights of an increasingly aggressive ISIS while the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency repeatedly defers deadlines for awarding a desperately needed security contract. The United States pledged support to Tunisia last summer after terrorist gunmen massacred 38 people at the popular Sousse beach resort. At the time, the U.S. offered a “Jordan lite” style program to fortify the porous border between Tunisia and neighboring...

The Department of Defense is responsible for millions of guns, from sniper rifles to pistols. Inevitably, at some point the Pentagon no longer wants them. What happens to the weapons then? They're fed to Captain Crunch, a giant crusher that turns military firearms into scrap metal. Captain Crunch was put into operation in August 1993 as an efficient way to destroy unwanted firearms. Located at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama and operated by the Defense Logistics Agency, the Captain is an enormous shredder using intertwined blades that turns weapons made of wood, steel, aluminum and plastic into large pieces...

An Army staff sergeant assigned to the Pentagon was arrested on murder charges in the death of a Virginia police officer, who was fatally shot responding to the scene of a Prince William County domestic-related shooting, authorities said Sunday.

The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies. A new directives theme: The U.S. Armed Forces must show resilience and beat back the threat based on actionable science. The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies. A new directives theme: The U.S. Armed Forces must show resilience and beat back the threat based on“actionable science. The...

After delaying nearly two years, the Pentagon on Monday announced plans to deploy advanced missile defenses in South Korea as soon as possible. In early 2014 the U.S. military commander in South Korea, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, asked the Pentagon for ground-based Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (or THAAD) units to counter growing threats posed by North Korean nuclear arms and missiles. China's government, however, pressured the South Korean government of Park Geun Hye into blocking the deployment. In the interim, the Obama administration did not press Seoul to allow interceptor batteries to be fielded, according to U.S. officials. Scaparrotti repeated the...

The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies. A new directive's theme: The U.S. Armed Forces must show "resilience" and beat back the threat based on "actionable science." It says the military will not be able to maintain effectiveness unless the directive is followed. It orders the establishment of a new layer of bureaucracy -- a wide array of "climate change boards, councils and working groups" to infuse climate change into "programs, plans and policies." The Pentagon defines...

The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies. A new directive’s theme: The U.S. Armed Forces must show “resilience” and beat back the threat based on “actionable science.” It says the military will not be able to maintain effectiveness unless the directive is followed. It orders the establishment of a new layer of bureaucracy — a wide array of “climate change boards, councils and working groups” to infuse climate change into “programs, plans and policies.” The Pentagon defines...

The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies. A new directive’s theme: The U.S. Armed Forces must show “resilience” and beat back the threat based on “actionable science.” It says the military will not be able to maintain effectiveness unless the directive is followed. It orders the establishment of a new layer of bureaucracy — a wide array of “climate change boards, councils and working groups” to infuse climate change into “programs, plans and policies.” The Pentagon defines

Wartime U.S. presidents have taken keen personal interest in picking the most lethal gun for the military. But in President Obama's first foray into small-arms procurement for the armed forces, his Jan. 4 executive order on gun control directs the Pentagon to find ways to make not so much more lethal firearms, but safer ones. His direct order has brought a few snickers among retired combatants who argue that the commander in chief is issuing his directive at a time of more pressing small-arms priorities. The military, critics say, fields a flawed personal rifle and has spent more than a...

President Obama’s nominee to head U.S. Central Command recently penned a memo to Defense Secretary Ash Carter demanding that the Pentagon stop discussing the operations of elite American troops. Foreign Policy, which obtained an excerpt of the memo, reported that Gen. Joseph Votel, currently the chief of U.S. Special Operations Command, wrote the December 8 memo to express concern about the Obama administration’s exposure of special operations forces’ activities. “I am concerned with increased public exposure of SOF activities and operations, and I assess that it is time to get our forces back into the shadows,” Votel wrote to Carter....

Senior Pentagon officials on Wednesday sought to defend the use of Russian-made rocket engines to send U.S. military satellites into space, telling exasperated lawmakers they are moving quickly to end the practice and rely on American-made rockets for the launches. But Air Force Secretary Deborah James and Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall failed to stem sharp criticism from several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who view Russia as the chief geopolitical threat to the United States. Led by the committee chairman, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., they said using the Russian engines enriches President Vladimir Putin's inner circle and...

Two weeks ago, the US military was humiliated by the Iranians before a worldwide audience. The surrender of two US Navy vessels of war and their crews to the Iranians without firing so much as a shot and the subsequent and sickening apology by the commanding officer, speaks volumes about the current fighting spirit, training and state of readiness of the US military in 2016. The conduct of the US Navy officer in charge, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was nothing less than a complete and utter disgrace. No doubt the order to surrender...