US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has upbraided Nato for its dependence on the US military, saying this puts the alliance’s mission in Libya at risk.
Libyan rebels appear to be gaining ground against Muammer Gaddafii, the British defence minister said, despite a deadly attack on Misrata port.
A United States military presence in the Pacific is essential to restrain Chinese assertiveness, Washington’s defence chief said on Friday.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Friday held out the possibility of a resumption of six-party talks if North Korea ceases provocations.
The defence chiefs of the United States and China on Monday sought to play down a growing military rivalry between the two countries.
Iran has declared it will begin enriching its uranium stockpile to a higher level, further raising fears over the country’s nuclear ambitions.
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/ 20 January 2010
Al-Qaeda is seeking to destabilise South Asia and could trigger a war between Pakistan and India, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday.
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/ 20 October 2009
The United States cannot wait for problems surrounding the legitimacy of the Afghan government to be resolved before making a decision on troops.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates blamed the Taliban’s revival on a failure to deploy enough troops to Afghanistan and said US forces would not withdraw.
We’re only 50 days in, but it’s not too soon to discern a refreshing thread of logic in the president’s foreign policy.
Barack Obama on Wednesday will order a crackdown on waste and cost overruns in government procurement that could save up to -billion a year.
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/ 28 January 2009
President Barack Obama is retaining a powerful but controversial US weapon left over from the Bush administration’s battle against terrorism.
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/ 15 September 2008
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates flew into Baghdad on Monday, preparing to hand command of the war in Iraq to a new general.
Burma’s junta on Saturday came under renewed international pressure from rights groups and the United States defence chief, who said its slow response to the cyclone disaster had cost "tens of thousands of lives". US Defence Secretary Robert Gates criticised the delay in allowing in foreign aid, saying US ships could have swiftly brought relief.
United States and Iraqi forces killed 13 gunmen in clashes and air strikes overnight in the Baghdad stronghold of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who said the US would remain his enemy until the ”last drop of my blood”. Authorities eased a blockade on Saturday in the Sadr City district of eastern Baghdad that had trapped residents in the slum for two weeks.
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/ 29 February 2008
All Turkish troops involved in a major ground offensive against Kurdish rebels inside northern Iraq have withdrawn to Turkey, Iraq’s foreign minister said on Friday. Turkey sent thousands of troops into remote, mountainous northern Iraq on February 21 to crush rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
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/ 28 February 2008
United States President George Bush urged Nato ally Turkey on Thursday to end its offensive against Kurdish PKK rebels in northern Iraq quickly, but Washington said it would not threaten to withdraw intelligence help. The United States fears prolonging the Turkish operation, which began on February 21, will undermine stability in the region.
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/ 28 February 2008
The Turkish army will remain in northern Iraq ”as long as necessary”, Turkish Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul said on Thursday, refusing to give a timetable for a troop withdrawal. ”Turkey will remain in northern Iraq as long as necessary,” Gonul told reporters after talks with United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
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/ 27 February 2008
Turkey declined on Wednesday to give Baghdad a timetable for the withdrawal of troops fighting Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq, resisting pressure from the United States and other allies to end the offensive quickly. Thousands of Turkish troops crossed the border on Thursday to root out Kurdistan Workers’ Party fighters.
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/ 21 February 2008
A missile from a United States navy warship hit a defunct US spy satellite 247km above the Earth in an attempt to blow apart its tank of toxic fuel, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. It was too soon to tell if the fuel tank had been shattered in the operation over the Pacific Ocean, the Pentagon said in a statement.
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/ 20 February 2008
The United States Defence Department said on Wednesday that the window of opportunity is now open for it to try to shoot down a failing spy satellite. The navy is planning to hit the satellite with a heat-seeking missile as early as Wednesday night. ”We’re now into the window,” a senior defence official said.
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/ 1 February 2008
A top al-Qaeda commander who led Osama bin Laden’s terror network in Afghanistan was believed to have been killed when a missile fired by a United States drone hit his Pakistani hideout, officials said on Friday. Abu Laith al-Libi is said to be one of bin Laden’s key lieutenants.
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/ 22 January 2008
The West must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the ”imminent” spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the West’s most senior military officers and strategists.
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/ 17 January 2008
Deepening divisions within Nato over its military operations in Afghanistan emerged on Wednesday after Robert Gates, the United States Defence Secretary, said America’s allies did not know how to fight insurgencies. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato’s Secretary General, rejected the criticism.
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/ 11 January 2008
Doubts intensified on Thursday night over the nature of an alleged aggressive confrontation by Iranian patrol boats and American warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday, after Pentagon officials admitted that they could not confirm that a threat to blow up the US ships had been made directly by the Iranian crews involved in the incident.
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/ 15 December 2007
A suicide bomber blew up a car packed with rockets outside police headquarters in the Afghan capital on Saturday killing several people, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The car was packed with BM12 rockets pointing towards the police chief’s office, said a police official.
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/ 8 December 2007
The intelligence came from an exotic variety of sources: there was the so-called Laptop of Death; there was the Iranian commander who mysteriously disappeared in Turkey. But pivotal to the United States investigation into Iran’s suspect nuclear-weapons programme was the work of a little-known intelligence specialist, Thomas Fingar.
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/ 6 December 2007
Al-Qaeda Sunni Arab militants remain a dangerous foe in Iraq despite a decline in violence, the commander of United States forces said on Thursday, a day after the deadliest bombing in Baghdad since September. ”We have to be careful not to get feeling too successful,” General David Petraeus told reporters.
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/ 5 December 2007
A suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Afghan army personnel in Kabul on Wednesday, killing six military staff and seven civilians, a defence ministry source said. The bomber used a car in the attack, which happened during the morning rush hour on a road in the south-western part of the city.
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/ 4 December 2007
A suicide bomber rammed a car into a convoy of Nato forces close to the airport in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, wounding 10 Afghan civilians, a police official said. A spokesperson for the Taliban said the militant Islamic group carried out the attack to ”welcome” United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
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/ 15 November 2007
Israel is quietly preparing for the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran despite public pledges to deny its arch-foe the means to pose an ”existential threat”, Israeli political and defence sources said on Thursday. Israel predicts that Iran’s nuclear programme could produce warheads by 2009.
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/ 5 November 2007
Pakistan police used tear gas and batons on Monday against lawyers protesting at President Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule and detentions mounted, prompting Washington to postpone defence talks. Musharraf cited spiralling militancy and hostile judges to justify Saturday’s action, and slapped reporting curbs on the media.