Latest news with #CentralCommand
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
More than 600 Wisconsin Guard soldiers ready for deployment with sendoff in Oshkosh
OSHKOSH, Wis. (WFRV) – Over 600 Wisconsin National Guard soldiers received a heartfelt sendoff at the Kolf Sports Center on Friday morning, surrounded by loved ones and state military leadership. The soldiers, assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment and Gulf Company, 132nd Brigade Support Battalion, are mobilizing to active duty and will soon deploy to the U.S. Central Command area of operations. 'Light the Night Market' returns to Appleton's College Avenue with Renaissance flair Their mission will involve working with NATO partners to promote regional security and stability. 'It was a two-year readiness cycle that started on the individual level,' said Spc. Alfonso Cordova of Milwaukee. 'We were graded on our performance to determine our readiness for this upcoming deployment.' Cordova said the road to deployment has been long and demanding, but he's honored to serve. 'The opportunity to serve my state and serve the nation alongside these great people — it's fantastic,' he said. 'Sometimes you can get a little down in the dumps, but having good family and good friends helps pick you up.' For many families, Friday's ceremony was a moment of both pride and heartache. 'I'm here for my cousin Tony Jones,' said Kimora Johnikin, who traveled from Milwaukee. 'We grew up together. We are the same age. We wish him nothing but the best. We're honestly beyond proud of him.' Tony's aunt, Glenda Bennett, echoed that pride. Sharing that he recently graduated from Marquette University with a 3.9 GPA and completed training with the Cedarburg Police Department. New Indigenous-owned restaurant in Green Bay looks to provide affordably fast & fresh cuisine 'He's the backbone of our family,' Bennett said. 'We're going to miss him like crazy.' The Guard currently includes more than 9,000 soldiers and airmen, who are routinely called to serve both abroad and during emergencies at home. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Asharq Al-Awsat
6 days ago
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Israeli Forces Raid Money Exchange Companies in West Bank
Israeli forces on Tuesday raided several money exchange companies in what Israeli media described as part of a campaign to disrupt financial networks allegedly linked to Palestinian factions. The campaign targeted most West Bank cities, where the occupation forces raided the offices of money exchange companies and confiscated computers and safes. They also arrested several shop owners in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron and Jenin. The forces confiscated cash, cryptocurrency and jewelry that were intended to finance terrorist attacks, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. 'Israeli security forces launched a West Bank operation Tuesday targeting currency exchange businesses suspected of funneling terror funds, seizing approximately 7.5 million shekels ($2 million) in cash and assets,' the newspaper wrote. Yedioth Ahronoth said the operation follows extensive planning by the Israeli army's Central Command and West Bank divisions, focusing on intercepting funds used to finance 'terror' activity. In addition to cash, the newspaper wrote that the Israeli forces confiscated cryptocurrency (including Bitcoin), jewelry and other tools allegedly used by currency exchangers to transfer funds to terror networks. Several suspects were arrested and businesses were shut down under military orders. Since the Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, the army's West Bank Division has escalated its financial crackdown, confiscating more than 28 million shekels ($7.5 million) in terror-linked assets, according to Yedioth Ahronoth. It quoted Palestinian sources as saying that on Tuesday, Israeli forces raided a currency exchange company named Al-Khaleej (The Gulf) in Nablus, arresting an employee and seizing money and furniture. On some money exchange shops, the Israeli forces left behind flyers that read: 'Attention! Israeli security forces are taking action against this company due to its ties to terrorist organizations. As a resident, you should seek a different exchanger who operates lawfully. Any dealings with Al-Khaleej put you and your money at risk and may result in legal consequences. Stay away from this place.' Al-Khaleej is the main money exchange company that Israeli forces targeted during their campaign in the West Bank. Videos and photos showed the forces arresting several shop employees while confiscating sums of money and equipment. The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority did not immediately comment on the Israeli raids. But on previous occasions, it has described such campaigns as an 'an act that aims to undermine the Palestinian banking sector.' For years, Israel has been fighting what it calls the 'Hamas money channels' in both Gaza and the West Bank. Most of the seized money originated from Türkiye and Iran and was intended to support terror attacks in the West Bank and other areas, Yedioth Ahronoth said. The Israeli army says that some of the money sent to Hamas were channeled through humanitarian aid and in hand-carry cash, while others via normal bank transfers. It accuses the movement of smuggling money in ways that are difficult to uncover, using multiple money exchange businesses rather than a central office.
Roya News
15-05-2025
- Business
- Roya News
Qatar to invest $10 billion in US's Al Udeid base: Trump
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Qatar would invest USD 10 billion at Al Udeid Air Base, Washington's largest military facility in the Middle East. "Qatar will also be investing $10 billion to support this massive base in the coming years," Trump said as he addressed troops at the facility southwest of Doha, which hosts the regional headquarters of the Pentagon's Central Command.
NBC News
15-05-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Trump vows to 'end conflicts, not start them' in address to U.S. troops
President Trump addressed U.S. troops stationed at Al Udeid Air Base outside Doha, Qatar, which is home to the headquarters of the U.S.'s Central Command. During his remarks, Trump said he aims to 'end conflicts, not start them,' but added that he 'won't hesitate to wield American power' to defeat its enemies.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's ceasefire with the Houthis was a win — just not the kind of win he says it was
Last week, President Donald Trump declared that his bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen was a success and announced a ceasefire deal with the militant group. Since then, reporting from multiple media outlets has revealed that the military operation ended not because Trump believed he was winning, but because the strikes were so ineffective that the he decided the U.S. couldn't win. At first blush, this is a classic story of Trump declaring yet another faux victory after a failed initiative. But in another light this is an unusual example of Trump doing something at least partially right. Trump's skepticism and impatience with protracted foreign entanglements in the Middle East is a rare bright spot in the America First paradigm. And if American presidents were more inclined to manufacture off-ramps to exit pointless and destructive interventions abroad, the world would experience less suffering. Trump's bombing campaign of Yemen, which lasted nearly two months, did not go well. According to The New York Times, in the first month of the campaign, the Houthis 'shot down seven American MQ-9 drones (around $30 million each), hampering Central Command's ability to track and strike the militant group. Several American F-16s and an F-35 fighter jet were nearly struck by Houthi air defenses, making real the possibility of American casualties,' the Times wrote. And one of the $67 million F/A-18E Super Hornets that tumbled off the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier into the Red Sea was caused by the carrier making a hard turn to avoid Houthi fire, according to the Times. Despite the U.S. burning over a $1 billion on its intensive air strikes, the Houthis remained undeterred and were continuing to fire at ships in the Red Sea. The Trump administration initially refused to lay out the exact parameters for its campaign against the Houthis. But the Times, citing three U.S. officials, reports that the plan was for a long operation expected to last eight to ten months. The objectives were more aggressive than President Joe Biden's failed air campaign against the Houthis, and included a plan to use tremendous firepower to take out the group's air defenses and also assassinate Houthi leaders. But, according to the Times, Trump asked for a progress report after a month and, feeling unsatisfied by the progress, decided to scrap the plan. Instead, the U.S. and the Houthis settled on a ceasefire agreement that the Houthis would stop firing on U.S. ships in exchange for the U.S. suspending its operations. Notably, that agreement did not restrict the Houthis from firing on Israel or shipments it considered helpful to Israel, which in turn has contributed to a growing rift between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump framed the ceasefire to the public in a misleading way. He said that the Houthis had 'capitulated' and 'they don't want to fight anymore.' In reality, it was Trump that didn't want to fight anymore, and he was covering up that his billion-dollar operation hardly dented the famously hardy militants' operational capacity. But the substance of Trump's decision matters too, and it was a judicious one. As I argued earlier this year, Trump's decision to initiate the strikes in the first place was foolish and destructive — the bombings were pre-emptive, highly unlikely to be successful and caused civilian casualties from the get-go, according to the The Yemen Data Project. But letting the operation get drawn out would've been worse still. Often, the longer U.S. military campaigns go on, the more pressure American presidents feel to double down and extend timelines of U.S. involvement, searching for some discernible victory that may justify the bloodshed. In Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, American presidents have presided over the deaths of many millions of civilians and tens of thousands of U.S. service members because leaders didn't want to admit that their mission was impossible. Some of Trump's ceasefire with the Houthis could be attributed to his fickle, impatient nature, a continual inability to see things through, particularly if they become too controversial. But Trump's operation against the Houthis wasn't treated as controversial by the mainstream press, in contrast to the (quite reasonable) uproar over the Signal scandal. Moreover, as the Times reports, a number of Trump's inner circle, including Vice President JD Vance and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, were skeptics of the operation. That they were in Trump's White House as voices to counsel him against doubling down in Yemen is a testament to the ideological norms Trump generated through America First talking points and his criticism of forever wars in the Middle East. None of this makes Trump some kind of principled anti-imperialist. His language proposing territorial expansion by taking control of the Panama Canal and Greenland hardly shows a regard for the sovereignty of other nations. And he has made policy moves that make military strikes on Mexico increasingly possible. In an ideal world, Trump would have owned the idea of the campaign against the Houthis as a failed, pointless venture instead of selling it as a victory. But even conventional, non-narcissistic heads of state are unlikely to squander political capital with such an admission of incompetence. That Trump ultimately found a way out is a better outcome than what would've happened had he tried to stay the course. 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