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The White House has nominated Army Lt. Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla to lead the U.S. Central Command. The nomination was first reported by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by The Hill. The Senate received a nomination for Kurilla on Wednesday ... If confirmed, Kurilla would replace Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, who has helmed Central Command since March 2019. The Pentagon said there is nothing to announce at this time. Kurilla, a native of Elk River, Minn., currently serves as the commander of the 18th Airborne Corps in Fort Bragg, N.C., a role he has held . ...

An al Qaeda operative at Fort Bragg By JOHN SULLIVAN and JOSEPH NEFF Raleigh News & Observer November 13, 2001 FORT BRAGG, N.C. - A former sergeant at Fort Bragg who became a close adviser to Osama bin Laden obtained sensitive documents describing how U.S. special operations units function. Ali A. Mohamed, a trusted trainer in bin Laden's al Qaeda network, walked the halls of the U.S. military's top warfare planning center at Fort Bragg for more than two years as an Army sergeant. From 1987 to 1989, he acquired sensitive documents describing how special operations units work and a...

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) and Tourism Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) are advancing revolutionary new legislation which seeks to apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. At the moment, due to the fact that Israeli law does not apply in Judea and Samaria, the army Head of Central Command, which is the official sovereign entity in Judea and Samaria, applies some of the laws on Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria by means of orders signed by the General. According to a report by Yediot Aharonot, Shaked and Levin, who stand at the head of the Knesset Legislation Committee, are...

Obama Fires Top General Without Even a Phone Call Daniel Halper January 25, 2013 10:26 AM President Barack Obama fired General James Mattis, the head of Central Command, without even calling the general to let him know he was being replaced. "I am told that General Mattis was travelling and in a meeting when an aide passed him a note telling him that the Pentagon had announced his replacement as head of Central Command. It was news to him -- he hadn't received a phone call or a heads-up from anyone at the Pentagon or the White House," Thomas E....

...Obama will visit U.S. Central Command, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, on Wednesday for a briefing from his commanders on battle plans against the Sunni insurgent group Islamic State. ....White House officials made it clear that there would also be no U.S. military forces on the ground in Syria to coordinate airstrikes, nor have any done so in Iraq. But as the President continues to coalesce U.S. and international efforts to “degrade and ultimately defeat” IS, and Pentagon officials say they are making headway against IS in Iraq, two former Centcom commanders offer mixed reviews of his plans. “I...

The Air Force has provided the White House with options for a strike against Iran's nuclear weapons sites, but a former top Pentagon official is warning America and Israel lack the weaponry to halt Tehran's atomic arms program. Iran's defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons "has the attention of the [Joint] Chiefs and other national security officials," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz told reporters Wednesday. "Our obligation is to provide options" to the defense secretary and the president, Schwartz said, "and we have done that." President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have said for months they will...

The Pentagon is beefing up U.S. sea- and land-based defenses in the Persian Gulf to counter any attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military has notified Congress of plans to preposition new mine-detection and clearing equipment and expand surveillance capabilities in and around the strait, according to defense officials briefed on the requests, including one submitted earlier this month. The military also wants to quickly modify weapons systems on ships so they could be used against Iranian fast-attack boats, as well as shore-launched cruise missiles, the defense officials said. The readiness push is spearheaded by...

Scrambling for a simple standard to measure events in Egypt and across the Arab world, the blogosphere and the airwaves have been full of references to 1979. That point of reference is probably more apt than imagined, for much more happened that year than just the Iranian revolution. It was also the year of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Sunni extremists, and the year that Saddam Hussein assumed overt power in Iraq. In sum, it was a year when the political tectonic plates of the region shifted violently and profoundly. It...

B-1B Lancer achieved 10,000 flight hours here, June 12. After 34th Aircraft Maintenance Unit professionals braved temperatures in excess of 110 degrees Fahrenheit preparing the aircraft for the flight, the aircrew stepped in and performed the milestone mission, despite an 18-hour duty day. "The tremendous amount of man-hours spent maintaining the B-1 and the sacrifices the maintainers endure away from their families, working extremely long hours in austere locations, has facilitated this historic event," said Master Sgt. Mathias Stewart, 34 AMU Airframe Powerplant General B-1 flight chief. "I am an extremely big fan of all maintainers, especially the crew chiefs...

*snip* In his book Fiasco, The American Military Adventure in Iraq, Thomas Ricks writes, "Small, slight and bespectacled, Mattis didn't fit the Hollywood image of the fire-breathing Marine commander. But retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson, himself a widely respected officer, commented, 'I think he's the finest combat leader we've produced since Korea.' Mattis genuinely seemed to thrive on the noise and confusion of battle. He adopted 'Chaos' as his call sign when he took the Marines into southern Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 and kept it when he led the Marine part of the invasion force for Iraq in...

The first really clear indication that serious planning was underway to strike at Iran’s rogue nuclear weapons site came a month ago when British news outlets reported that Saudi Arabia had given Israel permission to cross its airspace en route to Iranian targets. Yesterday, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States said publicly that his country was willing to live with the consequences of a strike against Iran despite the enormous amount of trade between the two countries and the likelihood of riots after a strike. Today, you have Sen. Joe Lieberman in Israel saying the U.S. would...

The US Air Force could soon deploy a 226kg (500lb)-class guided bomb designed with a composite warhead to destroy targets while causing the least amount of collateral damage. The first 50 Precision Lethality Mk 82 bombs could be delivered by January 2011, with up to 750 carbonfibre-wound warheads designated as BLU-129/B to follow. The air force has issued a market survey seeking contractors that can deliver the composite warheads rapidly in response to an urgent request by Central Command, the US headquarters in the Middle East and parts of south Asia. The Air Armament Center could award a contract as...

The top U.S. commander in Iraq said he expected the United States to meet a long-standing Iraqi request for new Lockheed Martin Corp F-16 multi-role fighter aircraft, although not as soon as Baghdad had sought. "We're still working our way through that, but I think they will be new ones" rather than refurbished F-16s, another option that has been under review, Army General Ray Odierno told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday. The U.S. Air Force has been quiet for months on the status of an assessment it carried out last year on Iraq's air defense needs and whether it...

The United Arab Emirates plans to host a four-day parley that would focus on air and missile defense. The second annual conference, titled "Annual Air and Missile Defence Summit," was scheduled to begin on May 30 in Abu Dhabi and include senior U.S. and other military commanders. "With the Middle East region being key to the global security, this summit aims to bring together all the key players to discuss the roadmap towards an integrated air defence strategy." conference director Grace Chng said. Organizers said the conference would focus on technology, interconnectivity and interoperability between military and industry. They said...

Lebanon expects to receive additional U.S. assistance to develop its military and security forces. Lebanese officials said the United States has pledged to lead an international effort to bolster Beirut's military and security forces. They said U.S. weapons began to flow to Lebanon in 2010 and could intensify over the next few months. "The U.S. military is convinced that the Lebanese army is capable of controlling stability in Lebanon," Ghassan Al Shibli, a researcher at the Washington-based Rand Corp., said. Officials said the Obama administration has concluded that U.S. aid should not be blocked by Hizbullah's domination of the government...

Leading U.S. military officers and strategists have assessed that Iran no longer fears a military attack by Washington. A symposium by U.S. Central Command and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy concluded that the leadership in Teheran does not fear the prospect of an American military strike. The participants in the joint conference asserted that the Iranian concern over a U.S. attack dissipated in 2005 when Washington was seen as heavily engaged in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq. "From 2002 to 2005, Iran sought to prevent UN Security Council action on the issue, believing that resolutions or similar measures would...

The United States has determined that the United Arab Emirates could repel any Iranian air campaign. A report on a conference sponsored by U.S. Central Command asserted that the UAE Air Force was powerful enough to counter any Iranian attack. The January 2010 conference, also sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the UAE has accumulated an advanced combat air fleet that could strike Iran. "In addition, Gulf aircraft such as the Mirage-2000, F-15, and F-16 are all capable of threatening Iranian targets, and the UAE Air Force is deemed quite capable of holding its own against...

Military experts say the Fifth Fleet has come a long way since Iranian gunboats crippled it within hours in a notorious war game five years ago. In fact, says John Pike, president of the Alexandria, Va.-based Global Security Web site, the Navy was well on its way to solving the challenge of fending off the swarming swift boats before the war game began. In that test, an enemy "red team" headed by retired Martine Corps Gen. Paul Van Riper deployed the gun boats and propeller-driven suicide planes to paralyze the Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. It...

The United States envisions a limited Israeli air strike on Iran. A conference by U.S. Central Command and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy concluded that Israel was preparing a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. In a report on the January 2010 conference, senior U.S. officers and strategists were said to have identified key Iranian targets in any Israeli strike. "If Israel were to take unilateral military action, it would be focused and short-lived, conducted via long-range bombing runs or missile strikes," the report, titled "The Perfect Handshake With Iran," said. "The most likely targets would be the...

Kazakhstan has decided to open its airspace to U.S. military aircraft ferrying supplies to American troops serving in Afghanistan, it was decided on Sunday at a meeting between President Barack Obama and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev in Washington. The permission granted by Kazakstan means that U.S. planes en route to Afghanistan can now use the polar route instead of flying along the indirect route through Europe, which would save precious time and fuel for moving supplies to forward locations in the war-ravaged country. The meeting, the first between the two leaders, took place on the eve of the Nuclear...