Can confirm five U.S. Army Special Operations troops killed in a helicopter refueling accident off the southeastern coast of Cyprus on Saturday morning, according to U.S. officials familiar with the incident.

1/X The troops were in the region as part of broader American contingency planning due to the war in Gaza, which has included preparations for possible evacuations from both Lebanon and Israel if they are needed.

Latest filing about Jack Teixeira raises serious Qs about how he came to be in the National Guard.

An application for a firearms ID card "was denied due to the concerns of the local police department over the Defendant’s remarks at his high school."

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… After joining the Guard, "In November 2022, the Defendant stated that if he had his way, he would “kill a [expletive] ton of people” because it would be “culling the weak minded.”

NEW: The mastermind of the Kabul airport massacre has been killed by Taliban, U.S. officials say

washingtonpost.com/national-secur… H/T on this to @karoun and @EricSchmittNYT, who published on this a short time ago.

Out of an abundance of sensitivity, The Post had held back on publishing this while family notifications are still ongoing this afternoon and evening.

In breakfast event with reporters, @SecArmy says today that options are being drawn up now to determine how the U.S. will send Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

The path ahead, she said, is "still to be determined." All possible options will take months. Others could take a year or two. @SecArmy The planning comes after the Biden administration decided last month to send Abrams tanks through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, an effort through which the Pentagon buys weapons for Ukraine and send them, rather than providing arms already in the U.S. arsenal.

New @RANDCorporation report on Afghanistan:

"The expanding, open-ended mission in Afghanistan led America into a policy trap in which victory was seemingly impossible to achieve but withdrawal was not politically or psychologically palatable. "

rand.org/pubs/research_… @RANDCorporation Some striking quotes in this report. Here's one from "one leader," undefined:

"I never said anything at the time. A point of bureaucratic politics is that once you obtain a seat at the decisionmaking table, you don’t say anything that’s going to get you kicked off that table."

The first Ukrainian battalion to undergo new U.S.-led combat training in Germany has completed its class, the Pentagon says in new statement this afternoon, with the unit expected to soon return to the battlefield against Russia. The unit included about 635 Ukrainian soldiers, and received training on everything from marksmanship to how to combine U.S.-provided armored vehicles with artillery and other weapons to maximize their effects.

Lots of "balloon warfare" experts out there are wondering why the U.S. military didn't pump balloons full of bullets to bring them down, rather than using missiles.

For that Q and others in this story, retired fighter pilot @Deptula_David weighs in:

washingtonpost.com/national-secur… First piece: Physics matter (and are different) at altitude.

Even if there are numerous bullet holes in a balloon canopy, at that height helium is not particularly inclined to escape, Deptula sure. There isn't enough of a pressure difference inside and outside the balloon.

In new statement, @RepGallagher cites this story about how NORAD effectively opened its radar filters and expresses alarm.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur… @RepGallagher "If true, we are potentially looking at one of the most staggering intelligence failures since 9/11," @RepGallagher says. "How long have these objects operated in our airspace with impunity? How long has the Pentagon been aware of them?"

SCOOP: Ukraine requires coordinates provided or confirmed by the U.S. and its allies for the vast majority of strikes using its advanced U.S.-provided rocket systems, revealing a deeper and more operationally active role for the Pentagon in the war.

washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/… The disclosure, confirmed by three senior Ukrainian officials and a senior U.S. official, comes after months of Kyiv’s forces pounding Russian targets — including headquarters, ammunition depots and barracks — on Ukrainian soil with the HIMARS and M270 weapons systems.

Seeing a narrative grow on social media that the Chinese balloon was not shot down by the U.S. military when it was first discovered despite it having explosives on board.

That's NOT what has emerged in any reporting I've done or seen.

What has emerged: U.S. military personnel are acting as though the remnants of the airship *could* have explosives aboard. An abundance of caution, basically.

Good, descriptive briefing today from @NORADCommand Gen. Glen VanHerck about recent counter-balloon operations over the United States just concluded.

Some key takeaways: @NORADCommand VanHerck, speaking in a Zoom call, described the balloon as roughly 200 feet tall, with a massive device hanging on the bottom that was roughly the size of a regional jet. It's part of why a shootdown was complicated, he said.

Can independently confirm that defense officials informed congressional officials on Saturday of previous incursions near/over Texas, Florida, Guam and Hawaii.

https://twitter.com/LucasFoxNews/status/1622257898825945089

Hawaii/Guam incursions were previously reported in the media over the last few days.

Florida and Texas now join the list, according to @michaelgwaltz and a second U.S. official.

Just sent along a big chunk of text as we build out our Washington Post story about today's balloon shootdown. In the meantime, a thread on some of what has emerged: The balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina at 2:39 p.m. by an F-22 Raptor from Joint Base Langley-Eustis. Other aircraft, including F-15s from Barnes Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, also were involved in the op.

At Pentagon, @PentagonPresSec says just now that the Chinese surveillance balloon disclosed yesterday is now over the center of the continental United States after tracking east from Montana. He declines to be more specific. . @PentagonPresSec says they know it is a surveillance balloon, not a weather balloon, as China claims. It is a violation of American airspace and international law, he says.

It's current altitude is at 60,000 feet, he says.

Four years later, a military jury found the two Marines involved in this case not guilty of all serious charges, two officials close to the defense say. The only specification that stuck was a violation of General Order No. 1, for drinking while deployed.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur… The case seemed problematic to a number of military justice experts, and a Marine Corps lawyer who assessed it years ago noted that a jury could find that what happened was a case of self-defense.

Since @ckubeNBC @MoshehNBC of NBC and I published stories on Friday night about Gen. Minihan's pointy memo about China, it has prompted a significant and polarized reaction. Some examples:

washingtonpost.com/national-secur… @ckubeNBC @MoshehNBC Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, for instance, called for Minihan being put out to pasture:

https://twitter.com/mccaffreyr3/status/1619602103646965761

NEW TONIGHT: The back story on how Biden came around on committing tanks to Ukraine.

A key moment: In a huddle w/ @JakeSullivan46 and the president, @SecBlinken suggested that they would need to do more to get Germany to share its Leopard tanks.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur… The discussion occurred Jan. 17, shortly after @OlafScholz rebuffed Biden's entreaties to send German tanks in a phone call. @SecDef was not present at the time, and had deep concerns about sending the Abrams.

Now that President Biden has announced the purchase and eventual sending of Abrams tanks to Ukraine, some additional details: The plan includes 31 U.S. main battle tanks -- enough for a Ukrainian battalion, according to a senior U.S. administration officials. The U.S. also will send eight M88 recovery vehicles, beastly tracked vehicles that function as tow trucks for the tanks.

At Ramstein Air Base for Ukraine Contact Group meeting. No clarity yet on whether Germany or the U.S. send tanks. Germany has said they will if the U.S. does. The U.S., which has approved nearly $27 billion in military aid, says their tanks are too logistically difficult to send. In opening remarks to defense ministers, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says "we need to dig even deeper." He has not mentioned the tank issue directly.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

NEW: Gen. Milley visited today two sites in Germany used by the U.S. to enhance the fighting skills of their Ukrainian counterparts, offering encouragement and directing the American soldiers instructing them to squeeze as much as possible into training.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur… Milley, speaking at muddy Grafenwoehr Training Area, bantered with Ukrainians, asked about their backgrounds and observed as they trained on the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle and the M240B machine gun.

Some takeaways here from Chris Miller's testimony to the Jan. 6 select committee. It includes a number of unexpected commentary: You'll recall that Miller became acting defense secretary after the firing of Mark Esper. He says that coming in, his "only instructions" from Trump were to get the U.S. military out of Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, "which I completely agreed with."