Free Republic

United States bases and troops in Iraq and Syria were attacked with mortars and armed drones on Thanksgiving Day, according to several reports. According to Sky News Arabia, U.S. and international forces were attacked four times in Iraq and Syria, but there were no casualties or damage to infrastructure. In Iraq, several suicide drones were launched at the Ain al-Asad air base west of Baghdad, as well as one at the Harir base near Erbil Airport in northern Iraq where U.S. troops are stationed, according to the report. A group calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for...

Romania and the United States have signed an agreement that would establish the first U.S. military bases in an Eastern European country from the former Soviet bloc. The United States already has the rights to a base in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, and is in the process of vacating one in neighboring Uzbekistan. With the United States already possessing a military presence in much of the world, what does it want with even more foreign bases? Washington, 7 December 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Romanian President Traian Basescu seemed as pleased to be hosting the bases as the Americans are...

Never mind closing Guantanamo. It might be getting bigger. President Barack Obama is running out of time to fulfill his longstanding promise to shutter the prison at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Sixty inmates remain in the facility and only a third are cleared for release. If Obama can’t close it, his successor likely won’t. Donald Trump has not only pledged to keep Guantanamo open, in April he said that “we’re gonna load it up with some bad dudes, believe me. We’re gonna load it up.” …

More than half a dozen military trainees from Afghanistan have disappeared over the course of about two weeks. They were training at U.S. bases, including Fort Gordon in Augusta and Fort Benning near Columbus. “It’s concerning and legitimately so,” Georgia State University security and counterterrorism expert Robert Friedmann said. Seven trainees went AWOL from bases so far this month. Friedmann says he doesn’t think the timing is a coincidence. “It's fairly likely that it was coordinated, because that's too much of a coincidence,” he said.

North Korea put its rocket units on standby on Friday to attack US military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after the United States flew two nuclear-capable stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula in a rare show of force. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a midnight meeting of top generals and "judged the time has come to settle accounts with the US imperialists in view of the prevailing situation", the official KCNA news agency said. On Thursday, the United States flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding...

Iran on Wednesday claimed it has the capability to destroy US bases “within minutes.” US "bases are all in range of our missiles, and the occupied lands [Israel] are also good targets for us," Revolutionary Guard commander Amir Ali Haji Zadehthe Fars news agency. The three-day Great Prophet 7 training exercise - which simulated rapidly releasing batteries of hundreds of guided missiles and Iran-made drones at mock-ups of US bases - wrapped up on Wednesday. Zadehthe claimed that 35 US bases are within the 2,000 km range of Iran’s rockets, although the actual number of bases within this area is...

The report described the launch of an "improved Sejil 2 missile" as successful and said the missile had a range greater than 1,250 miles — putting Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf within reach. The launch came after Israel's military intelligence chief said Tuesday that Iran is close to a "technological breakthrough" that would enable it to build nuclear weapons. Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin said Iran has enough nuclear material for a warhead and is close to being able to build one. He didn't specify the new technology or say when he expects Iran to reach such a capability....

BARILOCHE, Argentina (AFP) – South American presidents attacked plans for US bases in Colombia at a summit on Friday, and issued a statement warning "foreign military forces" against threatening national sovereignty. The meeting, in the Argentine mountain resort of Bariloche, heard fears from Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and his leftwing allies that the bases were part of a US strategy to act freely in Latin America, possibly against his oil-rich country. The final summit declaration warned that "foreign military forces must not... menace the sovereignty and integrity of a South American country and in consequence regional peace and stability." Its...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2008 – The United States does not plan to establish permanent bases in Iraq, President Bush said today. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Bush told host Chris Wallace that the best interests of the United States and Iraq would guide any agreement on long-term U.S. presence in Iraq, just as similar agreements are in place between the United States and other countries that host U.S. forces. “We will be there at the invitation of the Iraqi government,” he said. “And we won’t have permanent bases.” For the near term, Bush said, he’ll make decisions on the next...

WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he would like to have U.S. military bases in his country for an extended period to prevent foreign interference in Iraq, the Washington Post said on Monday. Talabani was asked in an interview in New York last week if U.S. bases would be welcome in Iraq's Kurdistan region. "Yes, they are welcome," he said. "Kurdistan wants the Americans to stay. In some places Sunnis want the Americans to stay. Sunnis think the main danger is coming from Iran now. There is a change in the mind of the Sunnis. The...

Saudi Arabia Said to Assure U.S. on Use of BasesBy ERIC SCHMITT ASHINGTON, Dec. 28 — Saudi Arabia has told American military officials that the kingdom would make its airspace, air bases and an important operations center available to the United States in the event of war with Iraq, senior military officials say.Saudi Arabia was the main staging area for American forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but conflicting public statements by top Saudi officials over the past several months have cast doubt on Saudi Arabia's support for military operations against Iraq this time around.American commanders now say...

RIYADH, 31 December 2002 — Saudi Arabia denied yesterday reports of a secret promise by Riyadh to make its airspace and bases available for use by the United States in the event of war against Iraq. “This report is untrue. The Kingdom’s position on this issue has been very clear from the start,” Prince Abdul Rahman, deputy minister for defense and aviation told Okaz daily. Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal told reporters during a visit to Sudan: “The truth is what I said, not what the newspaper reported.” Prince Saud was shown making the remarks on Al-Jazeera television while referring...

Seoul: North Korea has been building new underground missile bases along its east coast, targeting Japan and US military facilities in Japan, a report said Thursday. Some 200 Rodong missiles with a range of up to 2,200 kilometers (1,360 miles) and 50 SSN-6 missiles with ranges of 2,500 to 4,000 kilometers are at the new bases, the state-run Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS) said in the report carried by Yonhap news agency. "The new bases clustered along the east coastal line are for medium- and long-range missiles targeting Japan and US military bases in Japan," read the...

Under the agreement on the location of U.S. military facilities in Romania, the United States can launch an attack from Romanian territory without knowledge or approval of the Romanian authorities. Parliament's joint defense and foreign policy committees discussed the accord yesterday with representatives of the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The agreement, signed last year by Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu and visiting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on December 6 last year, allows U.S. troops access to four Romanian military bases. Mihai Kogalniceanu in Constanta will be the most important U.S. military base, as it...

Friendship and Immunity by Razvan Amariei 10 February 2006 A tragic incident highlights the volatility of Romania’s friendship with America. BUCHAREST, Romania | A controversial decision by a U.S. military court demonstrated that Romania’s customary pro-Americanism can easily shift into its opposite. But it also raises troubling questions about the immunity of diplomatic and military personnel in foreign countries. On 31 January, a jury at Quantico Marine Corps base in Virginia acquitted Staff Sgt. Christopher VanGoethem, a U.S. marine serving as a security guard at his country’s embassy in Bucharest, of negligent homicide and adultery charges in connection with a...

In a move meant to send a message to Uzbekistan, the Senate voted Wednesday to block the payment of $23 million for past use of an air base that the Uzbek government recently said will no longer host U.S. aircraft and troops. The legislation, approved by voice vote, was added to the $440 billion military spending bill for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. The House version of the spending bill does not include the prohibition, and lawmakers will have to work out their differences when the meet to write the final bill. For nearly four years, the base...

U.S. Army to Vacate 13 Bases in Germany BERLIN - The U.S. Army will pull out of 13 bases in southern Germany as part of a repositioning of American forces around the world, its European headquarters said Friday. The 11 bases in and around the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg will be handed over to the German government by September 2007, a statement from the Army's European headquarters in Heidelberg said. Two more bases near Wuerzburg will be closed and handed over in subsequent years. The closures are part of plans to return the headquarters of the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry...

"A more vital piece of U.S. history would be hard to find," gushed the Boston Globe last week about a new item in the Kennedy Library and Museum, a map of Cuba. The Library obtained it from the estate of Robert L. White, a collector who had earlier received it from JFK's late secretary, Evelyn Lincoln. "This map bears the marks of history," continues the Globe story, "a series of X marks in black ink, crosshatched east and west of Havana by President John F. Kennedy, and two foreboding words scrawled above them: 'missile sites.' This map was used by...

Leaders of a six-nation security bloc led by Beijing and Moscow called for a deadline to be set for the withdrawal of US forces from bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The presidents of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which comprises Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China, signed a declaration calling for deadlines to be set on the closure of airbases used by US forces in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. "Considering that the active phase of the military anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan has finished, member states... consider it essential that the relevant participants in the anti-terrorist coalition set deadlines on...

ALERT***ALERT***ALERT***ALERT***ALERT*** Al-Qaeda Operatives Visited South Korea: NIS Report by Bang Seong-su (ssbang@chosun.com) The (S. Korean) National Information Service (NIS) --(Note: equivalent to CIA/FBI) revealed on Monday that members of a Southeast Asian terrorist organization with ties to Al-Qaeda recently infiltrated South Korea, surveyed the security system at airports and U.S. military installations and left the country. Korea is preparing anti-terrorism and emergency measures, the NIS said. According to Millennium Democratic Party lawmaker Ham Seung-hee, the NIS said in a report to the National Assembly's Committee on Intelligence that this year a man named Mohammed came to Seoul from Manila...