Americas

Iran Guards Warn US After Receiving New Combat Vessels

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Thursday warned the United States against its naval presence in the Gulf as they received 110 new combat vessels. The vessels included Ashura-class speedboats, Zolfaghar coastal patrol boats, and Taregh submarines, state television reported. “We announce today that wherever the Americans are, we are right next to them, and they will feel our presence even more in the near future,” the Guards’ navy chief Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri said during a ceremony in southern Iran. Iran and the United States have appeared to be on the brink of an all-out confrontation twice in the past year. The latest confrontation between the arch-foes came after the United States accused the Guards of harassing its ships in the Gulf in mid-April. “Advancing while remaining defensive is the nature of our work,” said Guards commander Major General Hossein Salami. “But this does not equal passivity against the enemy,” he added, noting that Iran “will not bow down to any foe.” According to Salami, the Guards’ navy had been instructed to expand Iran’s naval power until it can adequately defend “territorial independence and integrity, protect naval interests and pursue and destroy the enemy.” Decades-old acrimony between the two worsened in 2018 when …

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Trump to Withdraw US From ‘Open Skies’ Treaty

President Donald Trump announced Thursday he plans to withdraw the United States from the Open Skies Treaty with Russia, the third arms control pact Trump has abrogated since coming to office. The U.S. leader said Moscow had not stuck to its commitments under the 18-year-old pact, which was designed to improve military transparency and confidence between the superpowers. “Russia did not adhere to the treaty,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “So until they adhere, we will pull out.” The New York Times reported that Trump plans to inform Moscow of the move on Friday, and that it could be a prelude to Washington also withdrawing from the New START Treaty, which limits the number of nuclear missiles the United States and Russia can deploy. The Open Skies agreement between Russia, the United States, and 32 other countries, mostly members of the NATO alliance, permits one country’s military to conduct a certain number of surveillance flights over another each year on short notice. The aircraft can survey the territory below, collecting information and pictures of military installations and activities. The idea is that the more rival militaries know about each other, the less the chance of conflict between them. But the sides also use the …

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Texas Navy Base Locked Down in Shooting Incident

A U.S. Navy base in Texas went on lockdown Thursday after shots were fired by an unidentified person, but no injuries were reported, the Navy said. Security forces at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, where both U.S. and foreign military personnel undergo flight training, responded to an “active shooter” at about 6:15 am local time, said Fifi Kieschnick, a spokesperson for the base. “The shooter has been neutralized,” she said. One service member originally reported as injured “is okay,” she said, but the base remained on lockdown two hours after the incident. It came five months after a Saudi air force student with al-Qaeda ties opened fire at a U.S. Navy air base in Florida, killing three U.S. sailors and injuring eight others. On Monday, U.S. law enforcement officials said the Florida shooter had radicalized at least five years ago and planned to undertake an attack before he arrived in the United States for military training. Since then tougher rules have been set to prevent the thousands of foreign military trainees in the United States each year from accessing firearms, and to conduct more thorough background checks on them.

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Coronavirus outbreak hits second US Navy ship at sea

A US Navy destroyer deployed off Mexico's western coast is the second American warship at sea to suffer an outbreak of coronavirus onboard

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USS Theodore Roosevelt sailor dies from COVID-19 complications

A sailor from the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the US Navy aircraft carrier taken out of rotation due to a coronavirus outbreak onboard, has died

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Canada to resume light armored vehicle exports to Saudi Arabia

Sale of the light armored vehicles was on hold since 2018 over kingdom's role in the war in Yemen and murder of journalist Kashoggi

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US Navy readies hospital ships ahead of Coronavirus wave

The US Navy is preparing to deploy its two hospital ships – USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort – to relieve pressure on hospitals caused by COVID-19

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Here’s how the US military is preparing for COVID-19

The US military is adopting broader measures to protect personnel from the global coronavirus pandemic. Here are the latest updates.

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US Navy reports first suspected shipboard coronavirus case on USS Boxer

The US Navy reported its first suspected case of the new coronavirus aboard a ship, saying a sailor on the USS Boxer had tested positive for the disease

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US-Brazil defense cooperation could help counter China’s space ambitions, general says

A US-Brazil defense research agreement offers the US a leg up over China's space infrastructure ambitions in the Western Hemisphere, SOUTHCOM commander Admiral Craig Faller said

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