3 Troops Killed in Rocket Attack on Coalition Base in Iraq

Jeff Seldin – Voice of America

WASHINGTON - Two Americans and a coalition servicemember are dead, and a dozen more wounded, after a barrage of rockets slammed into a military base north of Baghdad.

According to U.S. and Iraqi officials, the attack was carried out by militants operating a modified truck to launch rockets at Camp Taji.

A U.S. official told VOA the truck managed to fire about 30 rockets, 18 of which hit the base.

U.S. Central Command spokesman, Capt. Bill Urban confirmed to VOA that two U.S. servicemembers, along with another member of the U.S.-led coalition, were killed.

Media reports said the third servicemember was from Britain.

Twelve more people, including both U.S. and coalition troops and a contractor were injured.

U.S. military officials said it was too early to assign blame for the attack and that the investigation was still ongoing.

Iraqi military officials were the first to share word of the rocket attack, tweeting that only ten rockets had hit Camp Taji while sharing photos of the abandoned truck, which was found nearby.

The early report also said no one had been killed or injured.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have periodically shelled bases housing U.S. troops.

One such attack by the Kataib Hezbollah militia this past December killed a U.S. contractor at a base near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.  The U.S. responded with a series of retaliatory strikes.

Several reports from Syrian state media and social media accounts claimed airstrikes late Wednesday hit a series of targets in Syria, near the border with Iraq, possibly targeting Iranian-backed militias.

Pentagon Deploying More Ships, Forces to Latin America

Carla Babb – Voice of America

PENTAGON - U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) plans to increase U.S. military presence in the Western Hemisphere while taking on funding cuts to partner security programs that help Latin American partners counter drug cartels.

In written testimony Wednesday, SOUTHCOM commander Admiral Craig Faller said the U.S. “only enabled the successful interdiction of about 9% of known drug movement” recently in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Faller told the House Armed Services Committee that he'd need significant assets to drastically improve that number, including dozens of ships.

“Recognizing these complex challenges in our neighborhood, we will see an increase in U.S. military presence in the hemisphere,” Faller said, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon after the briefing.

Partners Vital

The increase, which is coinciding with a Pentagon review of the command, will include more ships, aircraft and forces, said Faller, who declined to discuss numbers.

But the increase will not be enough to fully counter the threats, which is “why it's so important to get partners in the game," Faller added.

Last year, half of U.S. drug interdictions in the region were enabled by local partner forces, according to SOUTHCOM.

The need for more partner nation participation comes as the latest Pentagon budget slashes SOUTHCOM’s partner security program funds by about 20%.

"That reduction will mean we’ll have to make some choices and have to defund some programs … that have increased our partners’ ability to do things like counternarcotics,” Faller said Wednesday.

He added that the increased military presence would help the U.S. offset short-term losses to security cooperation program funding. But he acknowledged that “there might be some areas where we'll take risks as we look in the future.”

Georgian Scolds Administration

The Pentagon’s failure to prioritize the geographic command responsible for counternarcotics operations south of the United States has hurt Americans, Republican Representative Austin Scott of Georgia said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on national security challenges in the Western Hemisphere.

"All of the additional money we've given [to defense] has been transferred to other priorities and not to the priority that is resulting in more deaths than any other area," Scott said, adding that the U.S. saw tens of thousands die last year from drug overdoses.

Scott scolded administration officials for giving the command “what’s left over” in intelligence and surveillance abilities after fulfilling other regions’ needs.

SOUTHCOM’s budget for this year is $1.2 billion, which is 1/14th of what was spent in Afghanistan alone.