Tag: troops

US military to consider transgender soldiers

The US military will consider opening its doors to transgender people who are currently banned from service and can be booted out if discovered, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said Monday.

The secretary of defense made the revelation as he unveiled a working group that will be studying the issue during the next six months.

“The Defense Department’s current regulations regarding transgender service members are outdated and are causing uncertainty that distracts commanders from our core missions” he said in a statement.

As a result, the Pentagon “will create a working group to study over the next six months the policy and readiness implications of welcoming transgender persons to serve openly,” he said.

In the United States, despite the 2011 repeal of the divisive “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, which banned gays from serving openly, transgender people have remained banned.

“At my direction, the working group will start with the presumption that transgender persons can serve openly without adverse impact on military effectiveness and readiness, unless and except where objective, practical impediments are identified,” Carter said.

“We have transgender soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines — real patriotic Americans — who I know are being hurt by an outdated, confusing, inconsistent approach,” he added.

Source: AFP

SANDF soldiers open fire on marked police car

No arrests have been made after three South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers allegedly opened fire on a marked police vehicle and that of a tracking company.

According to provincial spokesperson Colonel Leonard Hlati, detectives from Mbuzini are investigating three SANDF soldiers who allegedly “ambushed” a marked police vehicle and that of a tracking company following the hijacking near the Mozambican border at around 22:30 last Wednesday, Lowvelder reported.

The incident came after a vehicle was reported stolen in Tonga, Mpumalanga that night. The vehicle was fitted with a tracking device and the managing company, Cartrack, located the abandoned vehicle a few hundred metres from the border.

Tonga police were then notified of the recovery and invited to the scene where the abandoned vehicle had been left. An SANDF commander was then notified that the abandoned vehicle would be returned.

“Soldiers are patrolling the border and we wanted to warn them that we would be returning to the scene, so that they would not open fire on us,” a source who was at the scene, said.

With the Cartrack vehicle travelling in the front, followed by the marked police vehicle, the party approached the hijacked vehicle. “We had our emergency lights and sirens on,” the source added. However, the recovery party was still fired upon.

The occupants of both vehicles saw it was SANDF soldiers patrolling the fence who were shooting at them.

They shouted and called on the radio for the soldiers to cease fire, but to no avail. The soldiers kept on firing at the convoy. The police vehicle’s engine was hit and it eventually seized.

One witness described the incident as an “ambush” and added that the shots fired were not warning shots, but aimed to kill.

The SANDF soldiers accused of firing the shots claimed to have thought the approaching convoy to be hijackers, despite the notification from police.

SANDF spokesperson Colonel Piet Paxton, confirmed the incident and said a panel of inquiry had been requested.

“As far as we know, five shots were fired, believed to be from one firearm.

“One soldier could not account for five bullets and it seemed as though five shots were fired at the convoy. The panel of inquiry will investigate the circumstances around the shooting, as well as which disciplinary steps would have to be followed,” He said.

Paxton added that it was almost impossible for the major on duty to notify troops in the field of the police’s arrival, thus the troops had been unaware.

Fresh war in Afghanistan

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was fired amidst significant foreign-policy leaks on Saturday morning.

The New York Times reported that the United States will expand its mission in Afghanistan in 2015, with US troops participating in direct combat with the Taliban.

This flies in the face of Obama’s very public announcement six months ago in the Rose Garden that US troops in Afghanistan would be shifting into a “training and advisory” role next year.

American airpower will furthermore support Afghan forces. This bombshell was strategically leaked ahead of a holiday week in which Americans will be shopping for bargains in a very bleak economy.

The Afghanistan reversal is a new hawkish posture and Hagel’s departure after he helped to manage a withdrawal from Afghanistan and shrink the Pentagon budget, will be regarded as a logical step.

Obama’s decision, made during a furious White House debate in recent weeks with his senior national security advisers, came over the objection of some of his top civilian aides, who argued that American lives should not be put at risk next year in any operations against the Taliban when Al Qaeda is actually rising in Iraq.

But the military pushed back and curiously Hagel’s departure directly coincides with the new aggressive attack plan for Afghanistan.

ISIS’s rapid emergence, it’s unhindered oil sales and other foreign-policy crises possibly contributed to Hagel’s ouster.

The United States is changing course toward a more aggressive foreign policy: it is recommitting to the war in Afghanistan, which is by far the country’s longest, spanning two two-term presidencies.

The number of troops in Iraq has doubled, and the administration will soon seek an authorization from a Congress that is extremely unlikely to include a provision that outlaws direct combat by US troops, in a distinctly interventionist climate.

South African President Jacob Zuma deploys troops in the country

The SA National Defence Force has officially been deployed domestically from September 14 until next year in Marikana “and other areas of the country where needed”, the Presidency said in a statement on Thursday.

The Presidency said in a short statement that the soldiers would be deployed to support the police “in the prevention and combating of crime as well as the maintenance of law and order in the Marikana area, North West province and other areas around the country where needed.”

The statement did not detail where the other areas may be.

The deployment will last from September 14 until January 31, 2013.

“The extended period will see the SANDF soldiers supporting the police during the festive season period around the country, as they did last year, 2011,” the statement read. – Sapa