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American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter. The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year. Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed...

Not long after top-secret documents from the National Security Agency made their way onto the internet news site The Intercept on Monday, the Justice Department arrested NSA contractor Reality Winner. The 25-year-old Air Force veteran worked on a military base in Georgia, but online she had a long history of being heavily anti-Trump, an apparent social justice warrior, and a supporter of Iran over the U.S. During their evening broadcasts, the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) either played down her political attitudes, or outright ignored them as they reported on what she did. {..snip..}

Reality Leigh Winner, a 25-year-old National Security Agency contractor accused of leaking classified information about Russian hacking to the media, wrote that she wanted to "burn the White House down" in notes confiscated from her home during a raid, federal prosecutors said in court today. Winner pleaded not guilty to a charge of “willful retention and transmission of national defense information” this afternoon in federal court in Augusta, Georgia. She was arrested at her Georgia home on June 3 and charged with removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet. Winner was a contractor...

The woman accused of leaking classified information once wrote she wanted "to burn the White House Down...find somewhere in Kurdistan to live," prompting prosecutors on Thursday to argue she would flee the country if she was released on bond. Reality Winner appeared before a judge in Augusta, Ga., on Thursday who ordered her to remain jailed until her trial. Prosecutors argued that the 25-year-old might try to flee the U.S. if she was released on bond. They added that Winner wrote in her notebook alleged plans to set the White House on fire, travel to Afghanistan and pledge her allegiance...

The Warren Amendment didn't just call changing the names of military bases. It called for the destruction of Confederate monuments inside military graveyards including Arlington Cemetery. During the voice vote, only Sens. Hawley and Cotton voiced opposition to the destruction of anything inside graveyards. Other Republicans on the committee were completely silent. Senate Republicans are now scrambling, believing Trump will veto the defense bill if it includes the Warren Amendment. The amendment was passed with a voice vote, so there's no record on how any individual senator voted. I was told, "this isn't the hill to die on"... I can't...

Within hours of publishing a column by a U.S. senator conveying an opinion held by a majority of Americans, The New York Times’ staff erupted in an outrage, calling their employer’s decision to print a differing opinion, “surreal and horrifying.” The editorial page editor James Bennet at first defended running counter viewpoints by those in policy positions, but by Thursday, the New York Times fully relented, issuing an apology and blaming a “rushed editorial process” for its decision to run the op-ed at all. The op-ed, written by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., called on the federal government to “send in...

I had decided to go for dinner early - at six o'clock - with my friend, another pilot called Michael Poulikakos. It was the first time in the three or four months that I had been coming to the Intercontinental that I'd done this - usually I had dinner at around 8.30pm. We finished dinner about 7.30pm and then I went up to my room - room 522 - on the top floor, to make some calls. At 8.47 p.m. I was on the phone to Athens when I heard a big explosion down in the lobby. I went out...

Afghan Troops 'Go On Offensive' After Deadly Attacks By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan May 12, 2020 KABUL -- President Ashraf Ghani says Afghanistan's security forces will go on the offensive against the Taliban and other militant groups, following a violent day in which gunmen stormed a maternity hospital in Kabul and a suicide bomber targeted a funeral in the eastern province of Nangarhar. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the May 12 attacks, in which more than 34 people were killed. The Taliban denied involvement. Blaming the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS) group for the two attacks...

The Russian pipe laying vessel Academic Cherskiy has reached Danish waters on a journey that began on the other side of the world earlier this year. Russia sent the vessel in a bid to complete the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to bring natural gas directly from Russia into Germany and onto other European countries. Its a move that's been opposed by the United States, which wants to sell liquefied natural gas made in the USA to Europe. To make the point the US imposed sanctions on any companies helping to build the pipeline with President Trump signing the legislation..... Canadian...

Breaking News: Tornadoes left a path of death and destruction in Mississippi today..At least seven are reported dead.... An agreement among the OPEC+ nations to reduce oil production was reached this afternoon US time. Some 9.7 million barrels a day from OPEC+ countries will be combined with 2.7 million barrels a day in cuts coming from Brazil, Canada and the United States..... President Trump holding a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin..... A Turkish court this weekend accepting the indictment of 20 Saudi nationals in the killing of write Jamal Khashoggi.... The Israeli President Reuven Rivlin is denying Blue and...

At the same time, the spread of COVID-19, especially along Afghanistan’s western border with Iran, is further destabilizing the peace effort. In Herat Province, “thousands of Afghans are returning from Iran” to escape the outbreak, Mahdi said. Their arrival puts more stress on a woefully inadequate health care system. Instead of Afghan government action, “the Taliban has established their own set of groups fighting COVID-19,” including enforcing quarantines, while also but relying on non-governmental organizations to deliver care, Mahdi said. “If the Taliban really wanted” to cooperate with Ghani’s government, “they should stop fighting” and contain the pandemic as best...

Republican governors issue orders to stay home giving them a new and different name but first.... "We discussed with each other whether our rights can be taken by an order from a governor or an agency, and if they can be, what good are our rights?" Ammon Bundy spoke those words Friday following a Thursday night meeting in Emmett, Idaho in response to the "stay at home" order issued by Idaho's Republican Governor Brad Little.... In Iraq the United States has deployed two Patriot missile batteries and is expected to eventually deploy at least four.... The Saudi-led coalition staging air...

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived Monday in Kabul on an urgent visit to try to move forward a U.S. peace deal signed last month with the Taliban, a trip that comes despite the coronavirus pandemic, at a time when world leaders and statesmen are curtailing official travel. Since the signing of the deal, the peace process has stalled amid political turmoil in Afghanistan, with the country’s leaders squabbling over who was elected president. President Ashraf Ghani and his main rival in last September’s presidential polls, Abdullah Abdullah, have both declared themselves the country’s president in dueling inauguration ceremonies...

The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) killed 27 Taliban militants in northern Kunduz province, the Afghan military said. The 217th Pamir Corps in a statement said the security forces responded killed the militants while reacting to Taliban Taliban attacks in Khanabad and Dasht-e Archi districts. The statement further added that a large number of Taliban militants had also gathered in Imam Saheb district where they were planning a large scale attack against the security forces. The 217th Pamir Corps also added that a local commander of Taliban, Qari Hafiz, was also among those killed and 19 other militants...

The coronavirus death rate in the US is just over 1.25 percent of cases but first.... North Korea firing two short range missiles Saturday morning local time.... Saying the fight against Islamic State has made progress and out of concern for the coronavirus pandemic the US-led coalition in Iraq is reducing its military presence... At least two dozen Afghan police and military killed with others missing following an attack by Taliban connected forces.... The troubled US aircraft maker Boeing is getting a bailout from the federal government.... Moving to distance herself from the situation is the former UN Ambassador and...

The U.S. government has collected persuasive intelligence that the Taliban do not intend to honor the promises they have made in the recently signed deal with the United States, three American officials tell NBC News, undercutting what has been days of hopeful talk by President Donald Trump and his top aides.

The U.S. government has collected persuasive intelligence that the Taliban do not intend to honor the promises they have made in the recently signed deal with the United States, three American officials tell NBC News, undercutting what has been days of hopeful talk by President Donald Trump and his top aides. "They have no intention of abiding by their agreement," said one official briefed on the intelligence, which two others described as explicit evidence shedding light on the Taliban's intentions. Trump himself acknowledged that reality in extraordinary comments Friday, saying the Taliban could "possibly" overrun the Afghan government after U.S....

President Trump was rightly critical of the deal struck with Cuba during the Obama administration when he said the communist Cuban government got everything they wanted, and the U.S. got nothing in exchange. He has thankfully been reversing some of those unilateral concessions. Let's apply his standard to the recently announced "peace deal" with the Taliban. Under terms of the agreement, as reported in The Washington Times, "The U.S. will free 5,000 Taliban prisoners and begin to remove sanctions on top Taliban leaders." What does the U.S. get in return? The agreement, reportedly, asserts that we start calling them the...

The U.S. military said early Wednesday it had conducted an airstrike against Taliban forces in Afghanistan, the first such attack since a historic peace deal was signed with the militant group Saturday. The Helmand Province strikes targeted fighters attacking an Afghan government checkpoint.

Afghanistan's president publicly rejected the timeline for a prisoner swap with the Taliban on Sunday, just one day after the United States signed a peace deal with the militant Islamist group that proposes a March 10 deadline for an exchange of prisoners. The peace deal, more than a year in the making, aims to end the longest war in American history. Signed Saturday in Doha, Qatar, the agreement calls for the full withdrawal of American troops and supporting civilian personnel, including those of its allies, from Afghanistan within 14 months. There are currently about 12,000 U.S. forces in the country,...