Tag Archives: Pentagon

Exclusive: Trump seen hardening line toward Pakistan after Afghan war review

U.S. President Donald Trump walks to the White House in Washington, U.S. following his arrival from Camp David June 18, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration appears ready to harden its approach toward Pakistan to crack down on Pakistan-based militants launching attacks in neighboring Afghanistan, U.S. officials tell Reuters.

Potential Trump administration responses being discussed include expanding U.S. drone strikes, redirecting or withholding some aid to Pakistan and perhaps eventually downgrading Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some U.S. officials, however, are skeptical of the prospects for success, arguing that years of previous U.S. efforts to curb Pakistan’s support for militant groups have failed, and that already strengthening U.S. ties to India, Pakistan’s arch-enemy, undermine chances of a breakthrough with Islamabad.

U.S. officials say they seek greater cooperation with Pakistan, not a rupture in ties, once the administration finishes a regional review of the strategy guiding the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan.

Precise actions have yet to be decided.

The White House and Pentagon declined to comment on the review before its completion. Pakistan’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The United States and Pakistan continue to partner on a range of national security issues,” Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said.

But the discussions alone suggest a shift toward a more assertive approach to address safe havens in Pakistan that have been blamed for in part helping turn Afghanistan’s war into an intractable conflict.

Experts on America’s longest war argue that militant safe havens in Pakistan have allowed Taliban-linked insurgents a place to plot deadly strikes in Afghanistan and regroup after ground offensives.

Although long mindful of Pakistan, the Trump administration in recent weeks has put more emphasis on the relationship with Islamabad in discussions as it hammers out a the regional strategy to be presented to Trump by mid-July, nearly six months after he took office, one official said.

“We’ve never really fully articulated what our strategy towards Pakistan is. The strategy will more clearly say what we want from Pakistan specifically,” the U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Other U.S. officials warn of divisions within the government about the right approach and question whether any mix of carrots and sticks can get Islamabad to change its behavior. At the end of the day, Washington needs a partner, even if an imperfect one, in nuclear-armed Pakistan, they say.

The United States is again poised to deploy thousands more troops in Afghanistan, an acknowledgment that U.S.-backed forces are not winning and Taliban militants are resurgent.

Without more pressure on militants within Pakistan who target Afghanistan, experts say additional U.S. troop deployments will fail to meet their ultimate objective: to pressure the Taliban to eventually negotiate peace.

“I believe there will be a much harder U.S. line on Pakistan going forward than there has been in the past,” Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan ambassador to the United States, told Reuters, without citing specific measures under review.

Kabul has long been critical of Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan.

Pakistan fiercely denies allowing any militants safe haven on its territory. It bristles at U.S. claims that Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, has ties to Haqqani network militants blamed for some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan.

“What Pakistan says is that we are already doing a lot and that our plate is already full,” a senior Pakistani government source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The source doubted the Trump administration would press too hard, saying: “They don’t want to push Pakistan to abandon their war against terrorism.”

Pakistani officials point towards the toll militancy has taken on the country. Since 2003, almost 22,000 civilians and nearly 7,000 Pakistani security forces have been killed as a result of militancy, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, which tracks violence.

Experts say Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan is also driven in part by fears that India will gain influence in Afghanistan.

IS PAKISTAN AN ALLY?

Nuclear-armed Pakistan won the status as a major non-NATO ally in 2004 from the George Bush administration, in what was at the time seen in part as recognition of its importance in the U.S. battle against al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents.

The status is mainly symbolic, allowing limited benefits such as giving Pakistan faster access to surplus U.S. military hardware.

Some U.S. officials and experts on the region scoff at the title.

“Pakistan is not an ally. It’s not North Korea or Iran. But it’s not an ally,” said Bruce Riedel, a Pakistan expert at the Brookings Institution.

But yanking the title would be seen by Pakistan as a major blow.

“The Pakistanis would take that very seriously because it would be a slap at their honor,” said a former U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Lisa Curtis, senior director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council, co-authored a report with Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Washington, in which they recommended the Trump administration warn Pakistan the status could be revoked in six months.

“Thinking of Pakistan as an ally will continue to create problems for the next administration as it did for the last one,” said the February report.

It was unclear how seriously the Trump administration was considering the proposal.

The growing danger to Afghanistan from suspected Pakistan-based militants was underscored by a devastating May 31 truck bomb that killed more than 80 people and wounded 460 in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency said the attack – one of the deadliest in memory in Kabul – had been carried out by the Haqqani network with assistance from Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies.

Washington believes the strikes appeared to be the work of the Haqqani network, U.S. officials told Reuters.

U.S. frustration over the Haqqani’s presence in Pakistan has been building for years. The United States designated the Haqqani network as a terrorist organization in 2012. U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, then the top U.S. military officer, told Congress in 2011 that the Haqqani network was a “veritable arm” of the ISI.

The potential U.S. pivot to a more assertive approach would be sharply different than the approach taken at the start of the Obama administration, when U.S. officials sought to court Pakistani leaders, including Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani.

David Sedney, who served as Obama’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia from 2009 to 2013, said the attempt to turn Islamabad into a strategic partner was a “disaster.”

“It didn’t affect Pakistan’s behavior one bit. In fact, I would argue it made Pakistan’s behavior worse,” Sedney said.

MORE DRONES, CASH CUT-OFF

Pakistan has received more than $33 billion in U.S. assistance since 2002, including more than $14 billion in so-called Coalition Support Funds (CSF), a U.S. Defense Department program to reimburse allies that have incurred costs in supporting counter-insurgency operations.

It is an important form of foreign currency for the nuclear-armed country and one that is getting particularly close scrutiny during the Trump administration review.

Last year, the Pentagon decided not to pay Pakistan $300 million in CSF funding after then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter declined to sign authorization that Pakistan was taking adequate action against the Haqqani network.

U.S. officials said the Trump administration was discussing withholding at least some assistance to Pakistan.

Curtis’ report also singled out the aid as a target.

But U.S. aid cuts could cede even more influence to China, which already has committed nearly $60 billion in investments in Pakistan.

Another option under review is broadening a drone campaign to penetrate deeper into Pakistan to target Haqqani fighters and other militants blamed for attacks in Afghanistan, U.S. officials and a Pakistan expert said.

“Now the Americans (will be) saying, you aren’t taking out our enemies, so therefore we are taking them out ourselves,” the Pakistan expert, who declined to be identified, said.

Pakistan’s army chief of staff last week criticized “unilateral actions” such as drone strikes as “counterproductive and against (the) spirit of ongoing cooperation and intelligence sharing being diligently undertaken by Pakistan”.

(Additional reporting by Josh Smith in Kabul, Drazen Jorgic in Islamabad and John Walcott in Washington; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Howard Goller)

Trump gives U.S. military authority to set Afghan troop levels: U.S. official

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 13, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump has given Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan, a U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday, opening the door for future troop increases requested by the U.S. commander.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said no immediate decision had been made about the troop levels, which are now set at about 8,400.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

The decision is similar to one announced in April that applied to U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Syria, and came as Mattis warned Congress the U.S.-backed Afghan forces were not beating the Taliban despite more than 15 years of war.

“We are not winning in Afghanistan right now,” Mattis said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier on Tuesday. “And we will correct this as soon as possible.”

Mattis said the Taliban were “surging” at the moment, something he said he intended to address.

A former U.S. official said such a decision might allow the White House to argue that it was not micromanaging as much as the administration of former President Barack Obama was sometimes accused of doing.

Critics say delegating too much authority to the military does not shield Trump from political responsibility during battlefield setbacks and could reduce the chances for diplomats to warn of potential blowback from military decisions.

It has been four months since Army General John Nicholson, who leads U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, said he needed “a few thousand” additional forces, some potentially drawn from U.S. allies.

Current and former U.S. officials say discussions revolve around adding 3,000 to 5,000 troops. Those forces are expected to be largely comprised of trainers to support Afghan forces, as well as air crews.

Deliberations include giving more authority to forces on the ground and taking more aggressive action against Taliban fighters.

Some U.S. officials have questioned the benefit of sending more troops to Afghanistan because any politically palatable number would not be enough to turn the tide, much less create stability and security. To date, more than 2,300 Americans have been killed and more than 17,000 wounded since the war began in 2001.

Any increase of several thousand troops would leave American forces in Afghanistan well below their 2011 peak of more than 100,000 troops.

The Afghan government was assessed by the U.S. military to control or influence just 59.7 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts as of Feb. 20, a nearly 11 percentage-point decrease from the same time in 2016, according to data released by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

A truck bomb explosion in Kabul last month killed more than 150 people, making it the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 by a NATO-led coalition after ruling the country for five years.

On Saturday, three U.S. soldiers were killed when an Afghan soldier opened fire on them in eastern Afghanistan.

The broader regional U.S. strategy for Afghanistan remains unclear. Mattis promised on Tuesday to brief lawmakers on a new war strategy by mid-July that is widely expected to call for thousands more U.S. troops.

Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Armed Forces Committee, pressed Mattis on the deteriorating situation during the Tuesday hearing, saying the United States had an urgent need for “a change in strategy, and an increase in resources if we are to turn the situation around.”

“We recognize the need for urgency,” Mattis said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali. Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and John Walcott.; Editing by Andrew Hay and Bill Trott)

Pentagon successfully tests ICBM defense system for first time

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) element of the U.S. ballistic missile defense system launches during a flight test from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, U.S., May 30, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Phil Stewart and Lucy Nicholson

WASHINGTON/VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (Reuters) – The U.S. military on Tuesday cheered a successful, first-ever missile defense test involving a simulated attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile, in a major milestone for a program meant to defend against a mounting North Korean threat.

The U.S. military fired an ICBM-type missile from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands toward the waters just south of Alaska. It then fired a missile to intercept it from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Experts compare the job to hitting a bullet with another bullet and note the complexity is magnified by the enormous distances involved.

The Missile Defense Agency said it was the first live-fire test against a simulated ICBM for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), managed by Boeing Co <BA.N>, and hailed it as an “incredible accomplishment.”

“This system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat,” Vice Admiral Jim Syring, director of the agency, said in a statement.

A successful test was by no means guaranteed and the Pentagon sought to manage expectations earlier in the day, noting that the United States had multiple ways to try to shoot down a missile from North Korea.

“This is one element of a broader missile defense strategy that we can use to employ against potential threats,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters.

Prior to Tuesday’s launch, the GMD system had successfully hit its target in only nine of 17 tests since 1999. The last test was in 2014.

North Korea has dramatically ramped up missile tests over the past year in its effort to develop an ICBM that can strike the U.S. mainland.

The continental United States is around 9,000 km (5,500 miles) from North Korea. ICBMs have a minimum range of about 5,500 km (3,400 miles), but some are designed to travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles) or farther.

Riki Ellison, founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, described the test as “vital” prior to launch.

“We are replicating our ability to defend the United States of America from North Korea, today,” Ellison said.

Failure could have deepened concern about a program that according to one estimate has so far cost more than $40 billion. Its success could translate into calls by Congress to speed development.

In the fiscal year 2018 budget proposal sent to Congress last week, the Pentagon requested $7.9 billion for the Missile Defense Agency, including about $1.5 billion for the GMD program.

A 2016 assessment released by the Pentagon’s weapons testing office in January said that U.S. ground-based interceptors meant to knock out any incoming ICBM still had low reliability, giving the system a limited capability of shielding the United States.

(Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and James Dalgleish)

Pentagon delivers draft plan to defeat Islamic State to White House

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis waits to welcome Canada's Minister of National Defense Harjit Sajjan at the Pentagon in Washington, U.S., February 6, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Pentagon-led preliminary plan to defeat Islamic State was delivered to the White House on Monday and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was expected to brief senior administration officials, a Defense Department spokesman told reporters.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters that it was the framework for a broader plan and looked at Islamic State around the world, not just Iraq and Syria.

Davis said the plan would define what defeating Islamic State meant and was one that would “rapidly” defeat the militant group.

He added that Mattis would discuss the plan, which is primarily a written one with accompanying graphics, with members of the Cabinet-level Principals Committee.

The review of U.S. strategy comes at a decisive moment in the U.S.-led coalition effort against Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria, and could lead to relaxing some of the former Obama administration’s policy restrictions, like limits on troop numbers. The Trump administration has said defeating “radical Islamic terror groups” is among its top foreign policy goals.

The Baghdad-based U.S. commander on the ground, Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, has said he believes U.S.-backed forces would recapture both of Islamic State’s major strongholds – the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria – within the next six months.

Iraqi forces expect a fierce battle against Islamic State to retake Mosul.

In Syria, the United States must soon decide whether to arm Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters, despite objections from NATO ally Turkey, which brands the militia group as terrorists.

The U.S. military-led review includes input from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as from the Treasury Department and the U.S. intelligence community.

Davis said that in addition to diplomacy, the plan would include a military framework that builds on capabilities and goals on the battlefield.

Experts have said the Pentagon could request additional forces, beyond the less than 6,000 American troops now deployed to both Iraq and Syria, helping the U.S. military go farther and do more in the fight.

They also said the Pentagon may focus on smaller-scale options like increasing the number of attack helicopters and air strikes as well as bringing in more artillery. The military may also seek more authority to make battlefield decisions.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Andrew Hay and Peter Cooney)

Philippines says U.S. military to upgrade bases, defense deal intact

Philippine President Duterte discusses U.S. bases on Philippines

By Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – The United States will upgrade and build facilities on Philippine military bases this year, Manila’s defense minister said on Thursday, bolstering an alliance strained by President Rodrigo Duterte’s opposition to a U.S. troop presence.

The Pentagon gave the green light to start the work as part of an Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), a 2014 pact that Duterte has threatened to scrap during barrages of hostility towards the former colonial power.

“EDCA is still on,” Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told a news conference.

EDCA allows the expansion of rotational deployment of U.S. ships, aircraft and troops at five bases in the Philippines as well as the storage of equipment for humanitarian and maritime security operations.

Lorenzana said Washington had committed to build warehouses, barracks and runways in the five agreed locations and Duterte was aware of projects and had promised to honor all existing agreements with the United States.

This week, Republican U.S. Senator John McCain, who headed the U.S. Senate’s Armed Services Committee, proposed $7.5 billion of new military funding for U.S. forces and their allies in the Asia-Pacific.

The geopolitical landscape in Asia has been shaken up by Duterte’s grudge against Washington, his overtures towards erstwhile adversary China, and the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration has indicated it may take a tough line on China’s activities in the South China Sea.

The Philippines has said it wants no part in anything confrontational in the strategic waterway and will not jeopardize promises of extensive Chinese trade and investment, and offers of military hardware, that Duterte has got since he launched his surprise foreign policy shift.

Lorenzana said the Philippines had asked China for two to three fast boats, two drones, sniper rifles and a robot for bomb disposal, in a $14 million arms donation from China.

The arms package would be used to support operations against Islamist Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines, he said.

“If these are quality equipment, we will probably buy more,” he said.

Lorenzana said Russia was offering hardware such as ships, submarines, planes and helicopters.

As with China, those offers have come as a result of a charm offensive by Duterte, who has praised Russia and its leadership. He last year said if Russia and China started a “new order” in the world, he would be the first to join.

Duterte was infuriated by U.S. expressions of concern about extra-judicial killings in a campaign against drugs he launched after he took office in June.

(Editing by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel)

Pentagon says it can protect U.S., allies from North Korean missile threats

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter addresses a news conference at the Pentagon in Washington,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Defense Department, reacting to North Korea’s statement that it plans to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, said on Tuesday it was confident in its ability to protect U.S. allies and the U.S. homeland from threats from Pyongyang.

“We have a ballistic missile defense … umbrella that we’re confident in for the region and to protect the United States homeland,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told a news briefing two days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country was close to testing an ICBM.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Writing by David Alexander)

Kremlin says almost all dialogue with U.S. frozen: RIA

Kremlin spokesman

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Wednesday almost all communications channels between Russia and the United States have been frozen but the U.S. State Department disputed that statement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia did not expect the incoming U.S. administration to quickly reject enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and that almost all communication with the United States had ceased, according to Russia’s RIA news agency.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump questioned during his election campaign whether the U.S. should protect allies seen as spending too little on defense, raising fears he could withdraw funding for NATO at a time of heightened tensions with Moscow. Russia has said it would take countermeasures in response to any expansion of the 28-member military alliance.

“Almost every level of dialogue with the United States is frozen,” RIA quoted Peskov as saying. “We don’t communicate with one another, or (if we do) we do so minimally.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby quickly rejected Peskov’s statement.

‎”It’s difficult to know exactly what is meant by this comment, but diplomatic engagement with Russia continues across a wide range of issues,” Kirby said in an emailed statement to Reuters. “That we have significant differences with Moscow on some of these issues is well known, but there hasn’t been a break in dialogue.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone on Tuesday regarding the situation in Syria, Kirby said.

Separately, the Pentagon said it had held a video conference with counterparts at the Russian defense ministry to ensure the two sides’ air operations do not come into conflict with each other in Syria. Such discussions with Russia are held regularly as U.S. warplanes conduct daily air strikes against Islamic State in Syria.

RIA, citing an interview it said Peskov gave to Russia’s Mir TV station, quoted him as saying he did not know whether President Vladimir Putin would seek re-election in 2018.

“Everyone’s heads are aching because of work and with projects and nobody is thinking or talking about elections,” Peskov said.

Most Kremlin-watchers expect Putin to run for the presidency again.

(Reporting by Peter Hobson in Moscow and Yeganeh Torbati and Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Richard Chang)

U.S. Congress passes $618.7 billion annual defense bill

A U.S. Navy crewman directs an F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Mediterranean Sea in a photo released by the US Navy June 3, 2016. U U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed a compromise version of an annual defense policy bill on Thursday without controversial provisions such as requiring women to register for the draft or allowing contractors to make religion-based hiring decisions.

Ninety-two senators backed the $618.7 billion National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, and seven opposed it. Because it passed the House of Representatives by a similarly large margin last week, the bill now goes to the White House for President Barack Obama to veto or sign into law.

A White House spokesman told a briefing he did not yet have a position on the bill to report.

The 2016 bill, the last of Obama’s presidency, includes some Republican-backed initiatives with which he has disagreed in the past. It includes a $3.2 billion increase in military spending, when there has been no similar increase in non-defense funding.

The bill also bars closures of military bases, although top Pentagon officials say they have too much capacity, and it blocks planned reductions in active-duty troop numbers.

And it continues policies that bar transfers of prisoners to U.S. soil from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which Obama had hoped to close. While his administration has shipped most inmates from the controversial prison, the Democrat is not expected to accomplish his goal of shuttering it before he leaves office Jan. 20.

Obama’s successor, Republican Donald Trump, wants to keep Guantanamo open, and expand it.

The NDAA passed both chambers in the Republican-led Congress with margins large enough to overcome a veto, and the compromise legislation features many provisions such as a military pay raise and an expansion of a landmark human rights bill, that are extremely popular in Congress. [L1N1E316A]

After months of negotiation, the Senate and House Armed Services committees unveiled a compromise version of the NDAA last month that left out the Russell Amendment, a “religious freedom” measure Democrats said would have let federal contractors discriminate against workers on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, overturning Obama’s executive order.

Some House Republicans said they hoped to revisit that provision after Trump takes office, when they do not have to worry about a veto threat from a Democratic White House.

The bill also excluded a provision that would have required women to register for the military draft, now that Pentagon leaders are moving to allow them into combat.

A provision recommending that the U.S. conducts yearly high-level military exchanges with Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a breakaway province, made it into the final bill.

China’s defense ministry said in a statement on its official microblog on Friday that it was “firmly opposed” to the move, which would “inevitably damage U.S. interests”.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner, and Christian Shepherd and Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Richard Chang and Clarence Fernandez)

Hurricane Matthew hammers Haiti and Cuba, bears down on U.S.

Damage from Hurricane Matthew

By Makini Brice and Sarah Marsh

LES CAYES, Haiti/GUANTANAMO, Cuba (Reuters) – Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade, hit Cuba and Haiti with winds of well over 100 miles-per-hour on Tuesday, pummeling towns, farmland and resorts and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to take cover.

Dubbed by the U.N. the worst humanitarian crisis to hit Haiti since a devastating 2010 earthquake, the Category Four hurricane unleashed torrential rain on the island of Hispaniola that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.

As it barreled towards the United States, the eye of the storm had moved off the northeastern coast of Cuba by Tuesday night, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

At least four people were killed in the Dominican Republic by collapsing walls and mudslides, as well as two in Haiti, where communications in the worst-hit areas were down, making it hard for authorities to assess the scale of the damage.

“Haiti is facing the largest humanitarian event witnessed since the earthquake six years ago,” said Mourad Wahba, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Haiti.

Over 200,000 people were killed in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, by the January 2010 earthquake.

Matthew was blowing sustained winds of 140 mph (230 kph) or more for much of Tuesday, though as night fell, the windspeed eased to about 130 mph, the NHC said.

Early reports suggested that Cuba had not been hit as hard as Haiti, where the situation was described as “catastrophic” in the port town of Les Cayes.

In the Cuban city of Guantanamo, streets emptied as people moved to shelters or inside their homes.

Matthew is likely to remain a powerful hurricane through at least Thursday night as it sweeps through the Bahamas towards Florida and the Atlantic coast of the southern United States, the NHC said. The storm is expected to be very near the east cost of Florida by Thursday evening, the center added.

The governor of South Carolina ordered the evacuation of more than 1 million people from Wednesday afternoon.

With communications out across most of Haiti and a key bridge impassable because of a swollen river, there was no immediate word on the full extent of potential casualties and damage from the storm in the poorest country in the Americas.

But Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters in Washington the U.S. Navy was considering sending an aircraft carrier and other ships to the region to aid relief efforts.

The United States has already offered Haiti the use of some helicopters, said Haitian Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph, who added that damage to housing and crops in the country was apparently extensive.

Twice destroyed by hurricanes in the 18th century, Les Cayes was hit hard by Matthew.

“The situation in Les Cayes is catastrophic, the city is flooded, you have trees lying in different places and you can barely move around. The wind has damaged many houses,” said Deputy Mayor Marie Claudette Regis Delerme, who fled a house in the town of about 70,000 when the wind ripped the roof off.

One man died as the storm crashed through his home in the nearby beach town of Port Salut, Haiti’s civil protection service said. He had been too sick to leave for a shelter, officials said. The body of a second man who went missing at sea was also recovered, the government said. Another fisherman was killed in heavy seas over the weekend as the storm approached.

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

As much as 3 feet (1 meter) of rain was forecast to fall over hills in Haiti that are largely deforested and prone to flash floods and mudslides, threatening villages as well as shantytowns in the capital Port-au-Prince.

The hurricane has hit Haiti at a time when tens of thousands of people are still living in flimsy tents and makeshift dwellings because of the 2010 earthquake.

“Farms have been hit really hard. Things like plantains, beans, rice – they’re all gone,” said Hervil Cherubin, country director in Haiti for Heifer International, a nonprofit organization that is working with 30,000 farming families across Haiti. “Most of the people are going to have to start all over again. Whatever they accumulated the last few years has been all washed out.”

Matthew was churning around 20 miles (32 km) northwest of the eastern tip of Cuba at 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT). It was moving north at about 8 miles per hour (13 kph), the NHC said.

Cuba’s Communist government traditionally puts extensive efforts into saving lives and property in the face of storms, and authorities have spent days organizing teams of volunteers to move residents to safety and secure property.

The storm thrashed the tourist town of Baracoa in the province of Guantanamo, passing close to the disputed U.S. Naval base and military prison.

The U.S. Navy ordered the evacuation of 700 spouses and children along with 65 pets of service personnel as the storm approached. U.S. President Barack Obama had earlier canceled a trip to Florida scheduled for Wednesday because of the potential impact of the storm, the White House said.

A hurricane watch was in effect for Florida from an area just north of Miami Beach to the Volusia-Brevard county line, near Cape Canaveral, which the storm could reach on Thursday, the hurricane center said.

Tropical storm or hurricane conditions could affect parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina later this week, even if the center of Matthew remained offshore, the NHC said.

Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for Florida on Monday, designating resources for evacuations and shelters and putting the National Guard on standby.

(Reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince and Makini Brice in Les Cayes; Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Cuba and Jorge Pineda in Dominican Republic; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel and Dave Graham; Editing by Simon Gardner, Sandra Maler and Nick Macfie)

Senate clears way for $1.15 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia

battle tank

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate cleared the way for a $1.15 billion sale of tanks and other military equipment to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, defending a frequent partner in the Middle East recently subject to harsh criticism in Congress.

The Senate voted 71 to 27 to kill legislation that would have stopped the sale.

The overwhelming vote stopped an effort led by Republican Senator Rand Paul and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy to block the deal over concerns including Saudi Arabia’s role in the 18-month-long war in Yemen and worries that it might fuel an ongoing regional arms race.

The Pentagon announced on Aug. 9 that the State Department had approved the potential sale of more than 130 Abrams battle tanks, 20 armored recovery vehicles and other equipment to Saudi Arabia.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said General Dynamics Corp would be the principal contractor for the sale.

Paul, Murphy and other opponents of the arms deal were sharply critical of the Riyadh government during debate before the vote, citing Yemen, the kingdom’s human rights record and its international support for a conservative form of Islam.

“If you’re serious about stopping the flow of extremist recruiting across this globe, then you have to be serious that the … brand of Islam that is spread by Saudi Arabia all over the world, is part of the problem,” Murphy said.

The criticism came days before lawmakers are expected to back another measure seen as anti-Saudi, a bill that would allow lawsuits against the country’s government by relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

President Barack Obama has promised to veto that bill, but congressional leaders say there is a strong chance that lawmakers will override the veto and let the measure become law. Overriding a presidential veto requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate.

In Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is battling Iranian-allied Houthis, the Houthis have accused the United States of arming and supporting the Saudis, who intervened on the side of Yemen’s exiled government.

The war has killed over 10,000 people and displaced more than 3 million.

But backers of the deal said Saudi Arabia is an important U.S. ally in a war-torn region, deserving of U.S. support.

“This motion comes at a singularly unfortunate time and would serve to convince Saudi Arabia and all other observers that the United States does not live up to its commitments,” Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Grant McCool and Sandra Maler)