Military, Wars | featured news

New helicopter-style drones with 1.8 gigapixel colour cameras, capable of following 65 separate targets, are being developed by the US Army.

The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq Sunday, ending their withdrawal after nearly nine years of war and military intervention that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.

For the past 10 years, the United States has engaged in constant warfare. Does that mean the next 10 years will be the same, even after U.S. combat troops are out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Put it a different way: We have spent trillions of dollars to create the most professional and powerful military force in the world to fight those wars. It continues to cost hundreds of billions more each year to help sustain this all-volunteer force.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry accused President Obama Saturday of endangering U.S. troops by announcing plans to end the nation's military role in Iraq by Christmas. "The last thing you want to do is put those men and women's lives in peril, and I think that's what the president's done by making a political statement to his base that he's going to be out of Iraq by a date certain," Perry said.

The U.S. government's unmanned Predator and Reaper drones are continuing to fly remote missions overseas despite a computer virus that has infected the plane's U.S.-based cockpits, according to one source familiar with the infection.

Fighters for Libya's new leadership managed to take over the port in Sirte on Tuesday morning, a senior military commander in Tripoli said.

The Obama administration favors keeping a smaller military force in Iraq beyond this year than U.S. commanders believe is necessary, officials said Wednesday, although even a relatively tiny U.S. contingent may be too big for White House advisers who are worried about the slumping U.S. economy and the president's re-election chances....

Chinese arms firms offered to sell weapons worth about $200 million to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's beleaguered forces in July, two newspapers reported, compounding pressure on Beijing's brittle ties with the rebels who have ousted him.

U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, once the top commander in Iraq and then Afghanistan, will leave the Pentagon Wednesday for the halls of the CIA next week.

The U.S. military estimates that $360 million spent on combat support and reconstruction in Afghanistan ended up in the wrong hands.