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The Army is planning to retool its combat aviation brigades by altering some of the units' combination of aircraft and by adding drones. The aim is to convert all of the brigades to the “medium” combination of aircraft, which Kelly Pate, Army public affairs officer at Fort Rucker, Ala., said allows the commander “maximum flexibility.” Aviation brigades fall into three categories: — Heavy: Two AH-64 Apache attack helicopter battalions, one UH-60 Black Hawk assault battalion and one CH-47 Chinook support battalion. — Medium: One AH-64 Apache battalion, one OH-58D Kiowa reconnaissance squadron, one UH-60 Black Hawk assault battalion and one...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2007 – Defense officials announced today the deployment of five National Guard brigade combat teams to begin in summer 2009. These units will replace units that have not yet deployed. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters the units are being identified well in advance to give maximum time possible for mission-specific training. “It’s a tribute to the military planners who are trying to provide -- particularly for our National Guard brigades -- the type of timely notification so they can be prepared for the specific missions, but also to give the predictability for their families and employers,”...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2007 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is leaning toward approving a proposal to temporarily hold two Army brigade combat teams in Europe rather than move them to the United States, a defense official said today. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said that Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, commander of U.S. European Command, has proposed a short-term solution that would keep a greater force presence in Europe to accomplish theater security engagement missions. “It’s not a request for an indefinite period,” Whitman said. Four brigades are currently based in Europe: 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, in Grafenwoehr, Germany; 173rd...

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2007 – Four National Guard brigade combat teams have been notified for possible deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, DoD officials said today. The units are the 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, based in Little Rock, Ark.; the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, from Oklahoma City; the 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, from Indianapolis; and the 37th Brigade Combat Team, out of Columbus, Ohio. The units are not scheduled to begin deployment until December, officials said, and some may not go at all. “The units will only be deployed if conditions on the ground dictate...

WASHINGTON, April 6, 2007 – About 13,000 National Guardsmen will be alerted for possible deployment to Iraq in fiscal 2008, a senior defense official said on background today. Four National Guard brigade combat teams are likely to be alerted in the near future, the official said. If the decision is made to mobilize and deploy them, they would not leave until December 2007 at the earliest. National Guard officials said that alerting a unit does not necessarily mean mobilization and deployment. “We want to give our soldiers all the advance notice we can so they can prepare their families,...

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2006 – About 3,500 active-duty soldiers who were slated to begin their deployment to Iraq in the coming days will remain at their base in Schweinfurt, Germany, until further notice, defense officials announced today. Members of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, were officially notified within recent days that they won't deploy early this month, as scheduled, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Pentagon reporters. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved the adjustment, which was recommended by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., commander of Multinational Force Iraq, Whitman said. Whitman emphasized that the decision doesn't signal the start...

The 2005 US report on Chinese military power has a previously undisclosed part that says China has nine brigades armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the US, claims an article on a Web site which specializes on China's military weapons. The article, carried by the Web site www.zgjunshi.com, claims that the unreleased part of the Pentagon report released July 19 says that three of the nine brigades are equipped with Dong Feng-31 land-based mobile strategic missiles, with the other six armed with Dong Feng-5 ICBMs. In addition, China's 094 nuclear submarines, armed with strategic missiles, have undertaken...

The group repeated its last warning, stated attacks on London and other European capitals will not cease until their troops are withdrawn from Iraq. Earlier the group which claimed the first round of London bombings on July 7, also answered for the attacks Thursday, July 21. In its first warning, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades gave European states still in Iraq – Denmark, the Netherlands, Britain, Italy – until Aug. 15 to bring their soldiers out. Otherwise, said the statement, whose authenticity has not been verified, “there will be a bloody war in the service of God.” There will be...

A MILITANT group killed two US intelligence agents in Iraq on December 8, according to a video released on an Islamist website today. The video shows two armed and masked men reading a statement announcing the deaths of the two men near Taji, north of Baghdad, described as "two members of the Pentagon and the CIA''. The footage from the Saraya al-Jihad Al-Islami group shows various photos and official documents belonging to the two men, one of whom is named as Joseph James Wemple. The statement said that "fighters attacked the vehicles (carrying the two men), killed them and took...

JERUSALEM: A Palestinian woman suicide bomber blew herself up near a hitch-hiking post in Jerusalem yesterday, killing two people and wounding 15. The blast tore through the mainly Jewish district of French Hill in East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move not recognised internationally. Witnesses said a young woman, wearing a headscarf, blew herself up as she approached a security position near the post used mostly by soldiers. "She threw her head back and then there was an explosion," one witness said. "A few seconds later, her body burst into flames."...

Muslim militants claiming links to al Qaeda vowed in a statement on Wednesday to launch a "bloody war" on Europe after a "truce" offered by Osama bin Laden expired earlier this month. ... The group had warned in an internet statement earlier this month it would launch new attacks on Europe once the truce, which expired in mid-July, ended. Al Qaeda leader bin Laden, in an audiotape on April 15, gave European states three months to pull troops out of Afghanistan, Iraq and other Muslim countries or face new attacks like the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people on...

In June, Pacifica Radio's Los Angeles station, KPFK-FM, hosted a thirty-hour marathon of Dr. Kwaku Person-Lynn's anti-Semitic "Afrikan Mental Liberation Weekend."  It was the first time this once-annual program appeared for almost a decade. It had been banned by station management in 1993, after a long, hard-fought pressure campaign to remove it.  Afrikan Mental Liberation Weekend typically includes claims that the Jews disproportionately participated in the slave trade and persecuted blacks; in the past, he responded to criticism by calling the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League a "psychotic, idiotic, European Jew."   He has regularly played tapes by Nation of...

Israeli army radio reports the army has been ordered to 'completely wipe out' the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas, a day after a suicide bomber killed 16 people on a Jerusalem bus. Israeli helicopters killed nine Palestinians in strikes on militants after the bombing, leaving the US-backed peace "roadmap" in tatters. Israeli Internal Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi says no Hamas leader is safe. The army order, which directs the military to use "whatever means necessary," was issued following a meeting of Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz with the army's top command shortly after the attack. It is directed not only at...

The New York Times says President Bush decided to call for a change in the Palestinian leadership after receiving an intelligence report last week that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was helping finance al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group that claimed responsibility for the most recent suicide attack in Jerusalem. According to the Times, Mr. Arafat had authorized a $20,000 payment to the group, which is an off-shoot of the Palestinian leader's Fatah Movement. The report did not say when the payment was made. Earlier this year, Israel said it had found two documents signed by Mr. Arafat authorizing payments to known...