
Army general who oversaw Afghanistan withdrawal promoted to four-star officer after GOP senator drops hold
CNN
An Army general who oversaw the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was promoted to a four-star officer after a Republican senator dropped a hold on his nomination, according to a Senate aide.
An Army general who oversaw the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was promoted to a four-star officer after a Republican senator dropped a hold on his nomination, according to a Senate aide. The Senate on Monday confirmed Lt. Gen. Chris Donahue to be the commander of US Army Europe-Africa by unanimous consent, meaning no senator objected to his approval. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma, had previously blocked the promotion, despite the Senate Armed Services Committee advancing 984 other military promotions. CNN is reaching out to Mullin’s office for comment. Donahue, who currently serves as the commander of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Liberty in North Carolina, oversaw the final withdrawal from Afghanistan and was the last US soldier on the ground at Kabul’s international airport. A night vision picture of Donahue boarding a cargo flight out of the airport became a symbolic image of the end of a 20-year war and a chaotic withdrawal that saw the deaths of 13 US troops in a suicide bombing.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.

Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.

Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.










