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Japan Today
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Trump administration resumes sending some weapons to Ukraine after Pentagon pause
President Donald Trump, left, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, right, during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Tuesday, July 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) By TARA COPP The Trump administration has resumed sending some weapons to Ukraine, a week after the Pentagon had directed that some deliveries be paused, U.S. officials said Wednesday. The weapons heading into Ukraine include 155 mm munitions and precision-guided rockets known as GMLRS, two officials told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to provide details that had not been announced publicly. It's unclear exactly when the weapons started moving. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the pause on some shipments last week to allow the Pentagon to assess its weapons stockpiles, in a move that caught the White House by surprise. Affected was Patriot missiles, the precision-guided GMLRS, Hellfire missiles, Howitzer rounds and more, taking not only Ukrainian officials and other allies by surprise but also U.S. lawmakers and other parts of the Trump administration, including the State Department. It was not clear if a pause on Patriot missiles would hold. The $4 million munition is in high demand and was key to defending a major U.S. air base in Qatar last month as Iran launched a ballistic missile attack in response to the U.S. targeting its nuclear facilities. President Donald Trump announced Monday that the U.S. would continue to deliver defensive weapons to Ukraine. He has sidestepped questions about who ordered the pause in exchanges with reporters this week. 'I would know if a decision is made. I will know,' Trump said Wednesday. 'I will be the first to know. In fact, most likely I'd give the order, but I haven't done that yet.' Asked a day earlier who ordered the pause, he said, 'I don't know. Why don't you tell me?' Trump has privately expressed frustration with Pentagon officials for announcing the pause — a move that he felt wasn't properly coordinated with the White House, according to three people familiar with the matter. The Pentagon has denied that Hegseth acted without consulting the president, saying, 'Secretary Hegseth provided a framework for the President to evaluate military aid shipments and assess existing stockpiles. This effort was coordinated across government.' It comes as Russia has fired escalating air attacks on Ukraine, with a barrage that the largest number of drones fired in a single night in the three-year-old war, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday. Trump has become increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he wasn't happy with him. "Putin is not, he's not treating human beings right,' Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, explaining the pause's reversal. 'It's killing too many people. So we're sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine, and I've approved that.' The 155 mm artillery rounds have become some of the most used munitions of the war. Each round is about 2 feet (60 centimeters) long, weighs about 100 pounds (45 kilograms) and is 155 mm, or 6.1 inches, in diameter. They are used in Howitzer systems, which are towed large guns identified by the range of the angle of fire that their barrels can be set to. Howitzer fires can strike targets up to 15 to 20 miles (24 to 32 kilometers) away, depending on what type of round and firing system is used, which makes them highly valued by ground forces to take out enemy targets from a protected distance. The U.S. has provided more than 3 million 155 mm rounds to Ukraine since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022. It has sent more than $67 billion in overall weapons and military assistance to Ukraine in that period. Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Troops and federal agents briefly descend on park in LA neighborhood with large immigrant population
By TARA COPP and DAMIAN DOVARGANES Dozens of federal officers in tactical gear and about 90 members of the California National Guard were deployed for about an hour Monday to a mostly empty park in a Los Angeles neighborhood with a large immigrant population. It wasn't immediately known if any arrests were made. Defense officials had said the troops and over a dozen military vehicles would help protect immigration officers as they carried out a raid in MacArthur Park. 'What I saw in the park today looked like a city under siege, under armed occupation,' said Mayor Karen Bass, who told reporters there were children in the park attending a day camp. They were quickly ushered inside so they didn't witness the troops. Still, Bass said an 8-year-old boy told her that 'he was fearful of ICE.' The operation occurred at a park in a neighborhood with large Mexican, Central American and other immigrant populations and is lined by businesses with signs in Spanish and other languages that has been dubbed by local officials as the 'Ellis Island of the West Coast.' Messages were sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement seeking additional details. Jeannette Zanipatin with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights saw the brief but prominent presence of troops and federal officers at the park. 'I definitely think it's a source of intimidation,' she said. 'We know that the Trump administration is trying to make an example of Los Angeles.' The operation in the large park about 2 miles west of downtown LA included 17 Humvees, four tactical vehicles, two ambulances and the armed soldiers, defense officials said. It came after President Donald Trump deployed thousands of Guard members and active duty Marines to the city last month following protests over previous immigration raids. Trump has stepped up efforts to realize his campaign pledge of deporting millions of immigrants in the United States illegally and shown a willingness to use the nation's military might in ways other U.S. presidents have typically avoided. Betsy Bolte, who lives nearby, came to the park after seeing a military-style helicopter circling. She arrived to see federal officers on horseback moving through a grassy area, with activists and passersby shouting at them. Bolte didn't see any arrests and said it was 'gut-wrenching' to witness what appeared to be a federal show of force on the streets of a U.S. city. 'It's terror and, you know, it's ripping the heart and soul out of Los Angeles,' she said. 'I am still in shock, disbelief, and so angry and terrified and heartbroken.' The defense officials told reporters that it was not a military operation but acknowledged that the size and scope of the Guard's participation could make it look like one to the public. That is why the officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details about the raid that were not announced publicly. 'It's just going to be more overt and larger than we usually participate in,' one of the officials said before the raid ended abruptly with no explanation. The primary role of the service members would be to protect the immigration enforcement officers in case a hostile crowd gathered, that official said. They are not participating in any law enforcement activities such as arrests, but service members can temporarily detain citizens if necessary before handing them over to law enforcement, the official said. Sprawling MacArthur Park has a murky lake ringed by palm trees, an amphitheater that hosts summer concerts and sports fields where immigrant families line up to play soccer in the evenings and on weekends. A thoroughfare on the east side is often crammed with unlicensed food stands selling tacos and other delicacies, along with vendors speaking multiple languages and hawking cheap T-shirts, toys, knickknacks and household items. Authorities routinely clear encampments and medical outreach teams tend to homeless residents. Chris Newman, legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said he received a credible tip about the operation Monday. 'It was a demonstration of escalation,' Newman said. 'This was a reality TV spectacle much more so than an actual enforcement operation.' Since federal agents have been making arrests at Home Depot parking lots and elsewhere in Los Angeles, Newman said fewer people have been going to the park and immigrant neighborhoods near the city's downtown. 'The ghost town-ification of LA is haunting, to say the very least,' he said. More than 4,000 California National Guard and hundreds of U.S. Marines have been deployed in Los Angeles since June — against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Last week, the military announced about 200 of those troops would be returned to their units to fight wildfires. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Pentagon watchdog investigates if staffers were asked to delete Hegseth's Signal messages
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivers a speech at the US cemetery to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings, Friday, June 6, 2025 in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla) By TARA COPP The Pentagon's watchdog is looking into whether any of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's aides were asked to delete Signal messages that may have shared sensitive military information with a reporter, according to two people familiar with the investigation and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. The inspector general's request focuses on how information about the March 15 airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen was shared on the messaging app. This comes as Hegseth is scheduled to testify before Congress next week for the first time since his confirmation hearing. He is likely to face questions under oath not only about his handling of sensitive information but also the wider turmoil at the Pentagon following the departures of several senior aides and an internal investigation over information leaks. Hegseth already has faced questions over the installation of an unsecured internet line in his office that bypassed the Pentagon's security protocols and revelations that he shared details about the military strikes in multiple Signal chats. One of the chats included his wife and brother, while the other included President Donald Trump's top national security officials and inadvertently included The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson had no comment on Friday, citing the pending investigation. The inspector general's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Besides finding out whether anyone was asked to delete Signal messages, the inspector general also is asking some past and current staffers who were with Hegseth on the day of the strikes who posted the information and who had access to his phone, according to the two people familiar with the investigation and the documents reviewed by the AP. The people were not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Democratic lawmakers and a small number of Republicans have said that the information Hegseth posted to the Signal chats before the military jets had reached their targets could have put those pilots' lives at risk and that for any lower-ranking members of the military it would have led to their firing. Hegseth has said none of the information was classified. Multiple current and former military officials have said there is no way details with that specificity, especially before a strike took place, would have been OK to share on an unsecured device. 'I said repeatedly, nobody is texting war plans,' Hegseth told Fox News Channel in April after reporting emerged about the chat that included his family members. 'I look at war plans every day. What was shared over Signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations, for media coordinations and other things. That's what I've said from the beginning.' Trump has made clear that Hegseth continues to have his support, saying during a Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia that the defense secretary 'went through a lot' but 'he's doing really well.' Hegseth has limited his public engagements with the press since the Signal controversy. He has yet to hold a Pentagon press briefing, and his spokesman has briefed reporters there only once. The inspector general is investigating Hegseth at the request of the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island. Signal is a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications, but it can be hacked and is not approved for carrying classified information. On March 14, one day before the strikes against the Houthis, the Defense Department cautioned personnel about the vulnerability of the app. Trump has said his administration targeted the Houthis over their 'unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence and terrorism.' He has noted the disruption Houthi attacks caused through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, key waterways for energy and cargo shipments between Asia and Europe through Egypt's Suez Canal. The Houthi rebels attacked more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors, between November 2023 until January this year. Their leadership described the attacks as aimed at ending the Israeli war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
DHS asks for 20,000 National Guard troops for immigration roundups
FILE - A deportation officer with Enforcement and Removal Operations in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office conducts a brief before an early morning operation, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File) By TARA COPP and REBECCA SANTANA The Department of Homeland Security has asked for 20,000 National Guard troops to assist with immigration roundups across the country, and the Pentagon is reviewing the unusual request, a U.S. official confirmed to The Associated Press. DHS asked for the troops to help carry out President Donald Trump's 'mandate from the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens,' department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said. She said DHS will 'use every tool and resource available" to do so because the 'safety of American citizens comes first.' Unlike the troops deployed at the southern border, these National Guard units would come from the states and be used to assist in deportation operations in the interior of the country. How the troops would be used may depend on whether they remain under state governors' control. Under the Posse Comitatus Act, troops under federal orders cannot be used for domestic law enforcement, but units under state control can. The addition of 20,000 National Guard troops would provide a huge boost to immigration enforcement. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the DHS agency responsible for immigration enforcement in the interior of the country, has a total staff of about 20,000 people spread across three divisions. Enforcement and Removals Operations, which is the division directly responsible for arresting and removing people who do not have the right to stay in the country, has a total staff of roughly 7,700 people, including a little over 6,000 law enforcement officers. It was unclear why the request was made to the Defense Department and not to the states. The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public. Trump has been carrying out a wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigration, issuing a series of executive orders designed to stop what he has called the 'invasion' of the United States. The U.S. already has as many as 10,000 troops under state and federal orders along the U.S.-Mexico border, including some who are now empowered to detain migrants they encounter along a newly militarized narrow strip of land adjacent to the border. So far, these troops have largely been limited to providing airlift, bolstering the wall, surveillance and administrative support to free up border agents for arrests or detentions. Along the newly militarized zone, troops have put up warning signs and accompanied border agents but left the detention of migrants crossing the border to other agencies. In New Mexico, where the new militarized zone was first created, federal magistrate judges have started dismissing national security charges against migrants accused of crossing the southern U.S. border through the newly designated military zone, finding little evidence that they were aware of the zone. The request for 20,000 troops was first reported by The New York Times. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
