Search underway for 4 US Army soldiers missing in Lithuania
Hundreds of troops and emergency workers are racing to find four US soldiers who went missing during a training mission near Lithuania's border with Belarus, the US Army said Thursday, after their armored vehicle was found submerged in a body of water.
The soldiers were reported missing in a training area near the city of Pabrade at approximately 4:45 p.m. (10:45 a.m. ET) on Tuesday, the Lithuanian Armed Forces said in a Wednesday statement.
Members of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division had been carrying out a mission to recover another US vehicle in a schedule training session, according to the US Army.
US and Lithuanian soldiers, law enforcement officials, and Lithuanian military helicopters and diving teams were part of the seismic operation, which ran through Thursday 'without pause,' according to the US Army. Ground-search parties waded through thick forests and swampy terrain, which 'complicated recovery efforts.'
It came after the US Army Europe and Africa confirmed that the M88 armored vehicle operated by the soldiers was found in a training area.
'The vehicle was discovered submerged in a body of water in a training area after a search by US Army, Lithuanian Armed Forces and other Lithuanian authorities,' the statement on Wednesday said. 'Recovery efforts are underway by US Army and Lithuanian Armed Forces and civilian agencies. Search efforts for the Soldiers continue.'
Emergency crews were digging into a swamp, which was drained after vehicle was discovered more than 5 meters down, according to Lithuania's Defense Minister, Dovilė Šakalienė, Reuters reported.
Engineers created berms – strips of raised land – to help contain the surrounding water, which could be pumped and provide access to emergency personnel on site to the vehicle, the US Army said.
As of Thursday, there is 'no evidence or information confirming any casualties,' Lithuania's Ministry of National Defense said in a statement.
The soldiers were from 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division and were conducting 'scheduled tactical training' at the time of the incident, the statement continued.
Asked Wednesday evening by reporters if he had been briefed about the missing soldiers, US President Donald Trump said: 'No, I haven't.'
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor insisted teams 'will not stop' until the troops were found.
'This tragic situation weighs heavily on all of us and we're keeping the families, friends and teammates of our soldiers and recovery team in our thoughts and prayers,' the commanding general of 1st Armored Division said on Thursday.
Šakalienė said in a post on X that she was 'deeply saddened' to hear about the missing soldiers.
'Everybody remains on standby, ready to provide emergency medical support,' she said. 'Please rest assured that we will continue our efforts tirelessly.'
The US has maintained a presence in Eastern Europe and the Baltic region since 2014, in an operation called 'Atlantic Resolve,' following Russia's invasion of Crimea.
Lithuania, a member of both NATO and the European Union, hosts hundreds of American troops, who are stationed on a rotational basis.
A US military camp named Camp Herkus was established in Pabrade in August 2021, Lithuania's Ministry of National Defence announced in a statement at the time. It is equipped to house up to 700 soldiers, or 1,000 on a short-term basis, according to the Lithuanian Armed Forces.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN's Benjamin Brown contributed to this report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How Trump's Africa strategy may become a double-edged sword
With US President Donald Trump on a cost-cutting warpath since starting his second term, aid to Africa has been slashed and now defence spending is in his sights - but could these approaches cost more in the long run? The phrase his administration presses on Europe to assume more of the costs of its own defence is "burden sharing". This is the challenge that Washington is now throwing down to African armies too - and they are far less comfortably resourced to take it on. Moreover, having paid dearly in lives and money, in the struggle to hold back the spreading reach of jihadist armed groups across the Sahel, the Lake Chad basin and Somalia over recent years, they could be forgiven for feeling that they already carry much of the burden - and for the sake not just of their own continent but the wider international community too. Benin, which has lost more than 80 soldiers in jihadist attacks since the start of the year, is just one example. "The epicentre of terrorism on the globe" is how the Sahel was described a few days ago by Gen Michael Langley, who as head of US Africa Command (Africom) oversees the American military presence south of the Sahara. In briefings and interviews over the past few weeks, he has graphically outlined the threat that jihadist groups will present if their push southward towards the Gulf of Guinea succeeds. "One of the terrorists' new objectives is gaining access to West African coasts. If they secure access to the coastline, they can finance their operations through smuggling, human trafficking and arms trading. This not only puts African nations at risk but also raises the chance of threats reaching US shores." Gen Langley has admitted that the current upsurge in militant attacks is "deeply concerning". Yet he has also repeatedly hammered home a core message: the US is minded to rein back its own sub-Saharan military operations, leaving local armies to take on more of the defence burden. Some 6,500 personnel are currently deployed in Africa by the US military and a 2019 list published by Africom mentioned 13 "enduring" American bases across the continent and a further 17 more temporary facilities. But some of these installations, including the purpose-built drone base at Agadez in Niger, have already been shut down, in particular after military juntas seized power in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso since 2020. And it now looks as if the once-ambitious American operational footprint will be pruned back quite a lot more. Perhaps we will see more air power deployed from offshore to hit militant targets - Gen Langley says there have been 25 strikes in Somalia this year, double the 2024 total - but a much thinner permanent on-the-ground military presence. "Some things that we used to do, we may not do anymore," he recently told a conference in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, that brought together chiefs of defence staff and other senior officers from 37 countries. "Our aim is not to serve as a permanent crutch, but to achieve US security objectives that overlap with our partners. We should be able to help African nations build the self-reliance they need to independently confront terrorism and insurgencies." In the bluntness of his language Gen Langley reflects the stark change of outlook and policy that has come from January's change of power at the White House. "We have set our priorities now - protecting the homeland." What matters to the no-longer-so-new Trump II administration, the general made clear in a Pentagon publication last week, is fighting terrorists - particularly those who might attack the US. Other priorities are countering the spread of Chinese military influence across Africa and protecting freedom of maritime navigation through key trade choke points such as the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal and the Bab el-Mandab Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea. In some respects, the focus on training and capacity building that Gen Langley now expounds is not so very different from the approach of previous American administrations, Republican as well as Democrat. He lauds the National Guard State Partnership Program, through which individual US states have been helping to build the capacity of government security forces across Africa and other parts of the world - for the past three decades. France too is pursuing this approach, with the closure of bases in Chad and Senegal, while those in Ivory Coast and Gabon have been handed over to their governments, with only small French training teams left behind to work alongside African colleagues. However, in other respects, the Trump administration's Africa strategy represents a drastic shrinkage in outlook and - critics might argue - a conscious retreat from addressing the factors that drive instability, conflict and terrorism, particularly in the Sahel, which is among the poorest regions on the planet. For under President Joe Biden the US looked far beyond the military realm alone in its efforts to counter the both the growing reach of jihadist groups and other sources of violence. And Gen Langley, as Africom chief, was an articulate exponent of this much broader thinking. Only last year, in an interview with the Associated Press news agency, he outlined what he described as a "whole of government" response to the proliferation of conflict, stressing the importance of good governance and action to tackle the fragilities of African states and the impacts of desertification, crop failure and environmental change. This approach openly recognised that recruitment by armed groups and the spread of violence is fuelled not only by jihadist ideology, but also by a host of social and economic factors, including the stresses now afflicting farming and pastoralist livelihoods. Gen Langley himself does not seem to have abandoned this analysis, recently noting how Ivory Coast had countered the jihadist threat to its northern border areas by complementing security force deployments with development projects. He could equally have pointed to the success of a similar approach pursued by the president of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, before he was deposed in the July 2023 coup. But of course, these days Africom must operate within the context of a US foreign policy radically reshaped under Trump. There are even rumours that it could be downgraded to become a subsidiary of the US command in Europe and Gen Langley suggests African governments should tell Washington what they thought of this idea. Already the separate Africa unit at the radically slimmed down National Security Council at the White House is reportedly being wound up and integrated into the Middle East-North Africa section. Its director, Gen Jami Shawley, an Africa specialist appointed to the role only in March, has now been assigned to more general strategic functions. Addressing Congress this week, Gen Langley warned about China's and Russia's African ambitions: Beijing's agility at capitalising on the US's absence and Moscow's ability to seize military opportunities created by chaos and instability. Given these concerns, some might wonder if the general is discreetly signally his doubts about a slimmed down Africa strategy. Meanwhile, under the "efficiency drive" led, until recently, by tech billionaire Elon Musk, the American government's main international development agencies, USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, have been effectively shut down. The spine of the new US economic engagement with Africa is now private sector trade and investment. But business generally needs to operate in a stable and secure context - which Africa's most fragile and violence-prone regions cannot offer. And in winding up the American development agencies, the Trump administration has stepped aside from funding the rural projects and social programmes that sought to address land and water pressures and lack of economic opportunity, the key drivers of conflict - and the jihadist groups' recruitment of frustrated rural young people. For the fragile regions that are the main sources of jihadist violence the US response is reduced to the purely military, and now it is seeking to shift even most of that on to the shoulders of African states that already struggle to respond adequately to a plethora of challenges and responsibilities. Paul Melly is a consulting fellow with the Africa Programme at Chatham House in London. The region with more 'terror deaths' than rest of world combined Freed captive tells BBC of life in West African jihadist base Why Trump is on the warpath in Somalia 'My wife fears sex, I fear death' - impacts of the USAID freeze Trump's tariffs could be death knell for US-Africa trade pact Go to for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica Focus on Africa This Is Africa
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US Steel and Nippon Steel say Trump has approved their partnership
President Donald Trump has approved a partnership between US Steel and Nippon Steel, the companies said in a release on Friday. 'We look forward to putting our commitments into action to make American steelmaking and manufacturing great again,' the companies said in a statement. The steelmakers also entered into a national security agreement with the US government, the statement said. A finalized partnership would cap a deal that had previously drawn bipartisan opposition, including a block by then-President Joe Biden early this year. But Trump dropped his opposition after taking office this year, making the fortunes of the once-mighty US Steel something of a stand-in for the manufacturing renaissance he said he wants to see across the United States. 'President Trump promised to protect American Steel and American Jobs — and he has delivered on that promise,' White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. 'Today's executive order ensures US Steel will remain in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and be safeguarded as a critical element of America's national and economic security.' The national security agreement 'provides that approximately $11 billion in new investments will be made by 2028, which includes the initial investment in a greenfield project that would be completed after 2028,' the companies said in their statement. The agreement also contains governance commitments, including a so-called 'golden share' that could give the US government special say in how the partnership is run. Shares of US Steel (X) climbed 5% on Friday in after-hours trading. Trump traveled to Pennsylvania two weeks ago to celebrate a deal between the two companies, speaking before a crowd of cheering steelworkers, many in hard hats and safety vests. 'We're going to be so successful. You have just, you have just started, you watch, we're here today to celebrate a blockbuster agreement that will ensure this storied American company stays an American company, you're going to stay an American company,' Trump said at a US Steel plant just outside of Pittsburgh. US Steel had warned it would be forced to close some of its older, unionized mills unless the deal is completed and it gets the investment dollars needed to modernize. The United Steelworkers (USW) union is concerned Nippon's long-term goal is to shift production to its non-union operations in Texas or import steel from Japan to be finished in the United States, ending integrated steel production at US Steel. Nippon Steel has promised, however, to honor the union's contract with US Steel and to invest billions in integrated mills in Pennsylvania and Indiana. US Steel was once a symbol of American industrial power. It was the most valuable company in the world and, soon after its 1901 creation, became the first to be worth $1 billion. Its steel helped build America, from the skyscrapers dotting city landscapes to the cars speeding down highways, to the appliances inside millions of homes. But US Steel has declined sharply since its heyday. It is no longer even the largest US steelmaker, with only 14,000 US employees — 11,000 of whom are USW members. This story has been updated with additional content. CNN's Robert Ilich contributed reporting. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
San Francisco Chronicle
36 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
If Waymos are ignited during Saturday's No Kings protest, S.F. officials could let them burn
With massive demonstrations anticipated across the Bay Area on Saturday, firefighters in San Francisco are bracing for one dramatic form of protest theater: The torching of Waymo robotaxis. Burning the driverless cars became a fraught symbol of the moment during protests in Los Angeles on Sunday and Monday, which tipped off a week of escalating tension between President Donald Trump and California's major blue cities. Photos of the charred, smoldering, graffiti-scrawled cars instantly went viral on social media, transforming a manicured Southern California boulevard into an apparent war zone. If it happens in San Francisco, Fire Chief Dean Crispen said at a recent meeting, it might be better to let the cars burn. 'In a period of civil unrest, we will not try to extinguish those fires unless they are up against a building,' Crispen told members of the San Francisco Fire Commission on Wednesday. He explained that since the electric Waymo SUVs run on lithium ion batteries, they burn 'incredibly hot' and tend to explode when ignited. Such blazes are challenging to put out, and become dangerous due to the rapidly rising temperatures of the cars' batteries, a phenomenon called 'thermal runaway,' Crispen said. These sudden spikes can lead to sporadic eruptions. Quelling a Waymo fire would require connecting to a fire hydrant and essentially tethering firefighters to a single area, in a situation where they need to be mobile and agile. Crispen's comments provided a window into how emergency responders are planning and coordinating for a series of No Kings marches and rallies that could be structured and peaceful — or devolve into violence and property damage. Waymo plans to constrain service of its Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicles this weekend, pulling the cars out of the Financial District, SoMa, the Mission and Potrero Hill, according to company staff. The robotaxis will still be available on San Francisco's west side and in other areas. Set to coincide with President Donald Trump's birthday and a military parade in Washington, D.C., No Kings Day will cap off a week of protests in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities, which started off as a reaction to federal immigration raids, and then widened in scope. As Trump deployed troops in Los Angeles to intimidate protesters, anger at the president intensified. Organizers of Saturday's actions have called the president a 'would-be king.' Among the most captivating images from the initial Los Angeles protests were the scorched Waymo cars, lined up in a row and engulfed in heavy black smoke. Some observers believe the cars were targeted because of their association with Big Tech. Others view the Waymos as hapless victims, because they have no one behind the wheel and easily become paralyzed if an object is placed in their path. Lighting cars on fire is a common protest tactic, Omar Wasow, an assistant professor of political science at UC Berkeley, said in a recent interview. He noted that in the past, and particularly after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, demonstrators often directed their rage at police cruisers. 'At the same time,' Wasow said. 'There are some things that are specific to a Waymo car. You can stop it easily. There's not a driver who is going to try to drive through the crowd. It's almost a sitting duck.' Still, others wonder whether the L.A. demonstrators had arranged the cars in a defensive barricade, then lit the fires knowing they would be hard to control. 'I have no doubt the protesters not only called the Waymos, but that they lined the Waymos up in a strategic and defensive position,' said William Riggs, a professor of engineering and management at the University of San Francisco who studies autonomous vehicles. Representatives of Waymo said they had no reason to believe people had deliberately hailed vehicles to a scene to be destroyed. 'Safety is our top priority, and we are taking heightened measures to keep our vehicles and riders safe including limiting our service in needed areas,' a spokesperson for the company wrote in a statement. 'We are working in close coordination with local law enforcement and fire departments.' In response to the chaos in Los Angeles, Waymo diverted service from the downtown center. Subsequently, the company limited trips in certain parts of San Francisco, where protesters gathered on Monday. Though at that time the autonomous vehicle company declined to provide details about what was evidently an evolving service plan, Waymo's self-driving fleet on Monday appeared to be largely absent from SoMa and the Mission, two areas where the cars are normally ubiquitous. Protests took place that night at the 24th and Mission BART Station plaza and outside City Hall. Crews that responded to the Waymo fires in Los Angeles mostly stood by as the cars incinerated, Crispen said. He noted that San Francisco firefighters will follow suit, while assuring that his personnel would carefully monitor the fires and heed any decisions from incident commanders.
