Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Tag: Navy
Navy identifies U.S. sailor lost overboard in Red Sea
The U.S. Navy on Saturday identified a sailor who went overboard while deployed in the Red Sea.
The sailor, Aviation Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Oriola Michael Aregbesola, went overboard from the USS Mason on Wednesday, military officials said. He was assigned to the “Swamp Foxes” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 74.
Aregbesola, a 34-year-old Florida resident, joined the Navy in July 2020.
“Petty Officer Aregbesola fully embodied the selfless character and thoughtful warrior spirit of the United States Navy Sailor,” Cmdr. Eric Kohut, HSM-74 commanding officer, said. “His outstanding performance prior to and during deployment went well beyond aircraft maintenance; he truly saw and valued every member of the ship/air team.”
Aregbesola died as a result of a non-combat-related incident, according to the Department of Defense. The incident is under investigation.
Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, recently told “60 Minutes” there were about 7,000 American sailors deployed in the Red Sea region.
President Biden deployed the U.S. Navy to the Red Sea after Houthi rebels, who seized control of Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014, began attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Hamas.
Biden to campaign in western U.S. as Navy responds to Chinese and Russian patrols near Alaska
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
U.S. Navy sends 4 destroyers to Alaska coast after 11 Chinese, Russian warships spotted in nearby waters
The U.S. Navy sent destroyers to the coast of Alaska last week after 11 Russian and Chinese warships were spotted patrolling nearby international waters.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, called the size of the Chinese and Russian joint operation “unprecedented” and said the U.S. deployed four Navy destroyer ships near the Aleutian Islands in response.
The destroyers were the USS John McCain, USS Benfold, USS John Finn and USS Chung-Hoon. U.S. aircraft were also in the area throughout the combined exercise, which the U.S. had been tracking since it began in July, according to U.S. officials. U.S. Coast Guard ships are also always in the area.
U.S. Northern Command said the Chinese and Russian patrol remained in international waters and wasn’t considered a threat. But the show of force is a reminder of the cooperation between the Chinese and Russian militaries – and of how close the countries are to Alaska.
CBS News
A similar joint exercise took place last September, when the U.S. Coast Guard encountered seven Chinese and Russian ships near Alaska, all in a single formation.
China and Russia have increased their ties amid tensions with the U.S. over Taiwan and Ukraine, making situations like this more alarming.
In a statement to other media outlets, the Chinese embassy said the patrol was part of an annual cooperation plan and has nothing to do with the current international and regional situations.
Weijia Jiang
Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.
Create your free account or log in
for more features.
China, Russia send 11 military vessels near Alaska, U.S. responds with 4 Navy destroyers
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Iran boosts navy with missiles, drones as US offers guards for Gulf ships
DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran has equipped its Revolutionary Guards’ navy with drones and 1,000-km (600-mile) range missiles, Iranian news agencies reported on Saturday, as the U.S. offers to put guards on commercial ships going through the Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz.
“Various types of drones … and several hundred cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 300 to 1,000 km are among the systems and equipment that were added to the capabilities of the Guards’ navy today,” state news agency IRNA said.
Earlier this week, Washington said it could soon offer to put armed sailors and Marines on commercial ships in the region following Iran’s seizure and harassment of vessels.
Last month, it said it would send additional F-35 and F-16 fighter jets, along with a warship to the Middle East, to monitor waterways. About a fifth of the world’s crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman.
Tehran usually says detained vessels have committed shipping violations. Some have been released only after foreign countries have freed detained Iranian ships.
Revolutionary Guards’ Navy Commander Alireza Tangsiri told state TV that the new missiles had better precision as well as longer range. “The cruise missiles can attack several targets simultaneously and the commands can be altered after take-off.”
(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
In a first, Mexican marines find huge cache of dynamite in cave-like meth lab run by drug cartel
Mexican marines found 110 pounds of dynamite hidden in a methamphetamine laboratory run by a drug cartel, the navy said Thursday. The navy said it marked the first time it had discovered explosive materials that were “presumed to be used against the personnel and vehicles involved in destroying these laboratories.”
The navy said the explosives may have been intended for use in “mines and explosive artifacts” of the kind that cartels have been increasingly using to attack law enforcement personnel in Mexico.
“It could be used to manufacture bombs, as well as mines and other explosive artifacts that would be capable of damaging highly armored vehicles,” the Navy Department said in a statement.
Other explosives were also found at the site, a cave-like structure in the northern state of Sinaloa. Sinaloa is the headquarters of the drug cartel of the same name.
Mexican Navy
Photos from the raid showed two boxes labelled “Explosives Blasting Type E,” suggesting they were made in Mexico and may have been intended for use in the mining or construction industry. Thefts of such explosives from mines have been reported before in Mexico.
Marines also found three other drug labs holding about 19,000 pounds of “nearly finished” meth in the raids that took place starting Monday. They also seized over 14,000 pounds of other “substances and chemical precursors” for the production of synthetic drugs.
All of the meth and materials were destroyed on site, officials said, noting that the drugs and other items were worth more than $30 million.
In July, another drug cartel set off a coordinated series of seven roadway bombs in western Mexico that killed four police officers and two civilians. The governor of Jalisco state said the explosions were a trap set by the cartel to kill law enforcement personnel.
The two dead civilians were in a vehicle that happened to be passing the spot when the explosives detonated in Tlajomulco, near the state capital of Guadalajara. The bombs may have been remotely detonated. They were so powerful they tore craters in the road, destroyed at least four vehicles and wounded 14 other people.
It was the latest example of the increasingly open, military-style challenge posed by the country’s drug cartels.
In June, another cartel used a car bomb to kill a National Guard officer in the neighboring state of Guanajuato.
Explosives also wounded 10 soldiers in the neighboring state of Michoacan in 2022 and killed a civilian.
Explosives aren’t the only escalation in the methods of Mexican cartels. Cartel turf battles in Michoacan state have featured the use of trenches, pillboxes, homemade armored cars and drones modified to drop small bombs.
The Mexican navy said Thursday that so far this year, it had found and destroyed a total of 92 secret drug labs, 125 tons of methamphetamine and 285 tons of chemical substances and precursors .
Russian warship damaged in Ukraine sea drone attack on navy base Novorossiysk
Russia said Friday that Ukraine had attacked one of its key naval bases using sea drones.
The Russian defense ministry claimed to have thwarted the overnight attack on the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, but the fate of one of its warships was in doubt after it appeared to have been damaged in the incident.
In a statement released early Friday, the defense ministry said the naval base in southern Russia was attacked by two unmanned sea drones overnight. The drones were destroyed by ships guarding the outer boundary of the naval base, the ministry said.
It did not mention any damage or loss of life due to the incident, which it blamed on Ukraine’s armed forces.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility by Kyiv, which usually refrains from commenting on attacks on Russian soil. Moscow usually immediately blames Ukraine for any such incidents, without providing evidence.
But Ukrainian social media was abuzz with news of the attack, the latest apparent Ukrainian effort to strike strategic targets inside Russia.
Videos circulating online showed a ship resembling the “Olenegorsky Gornyak” warship listing to one side and being towed back to the port that the Russian government said had been attacked. Using satellite imagery and marine ship tracking data, NBC News was able to confirm that the video was filmed in Novorossiysk and showed the same class of warship as the “Olenegorsky Gornyak.”
The port city of Novorossiysk is located on the Black Sea in Russia’s Krasnodar region, in close vicinity to Russian-occupied Crimea.
The defense ministry website says the naval base there is part of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. It was established in 1994, the ministry said, and before the war in Ukraine served as one of the key outposts for border protection and military transportation.
The Krasnodar region Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said in a post on the Telegram messaging app that there were no casualties or damage as the result of the alleged attack.
The mayor of Novorossiysk, Andrey Kravchenko, mentioned two ships in a post on Telegram, saying the crews of “Olenegorsky Gornyak” and “Suvorovets” immediately reacted and helped to avoid the consequences of the attack.
“Thank you, our warriors and defenders, for protecting the hero city!” he wrote, without mentioning any damage to the ships.
A nearby oil terminal reported that its infrastructure was not damaged, and its operations were unaffected.
The incident comes amid a slew of drone attacks in recent months on Russian territory, including three separate drone attacks on the heart of the Russian capital in the last two weeks.
As Ukraine finds itself in the middle of a crucial counteroffensive to reclaim occupied land, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned last week that the war was gradually “returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases” in what he called an “inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process.”
On Tuesday, the Russian defense ministry reported that three Ukrainian unmanned sea drones tried to attack two patrol ships in the southwestern Black Sea, but the attempt was also thwarted.
Kyiv has been careful not to claim responsibility for attacks in Russia, but Ukrainian officials often send sarcastic signals in their aftermath.
Hours after the alleged drone attack on Friday, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, shared a photo of a Ukrainian soldier flying a drone on Telegram with a caption: “Good Ukrainian morning to everyone. And let everything that you have planned fly.”
Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking Black Sea navy base and Crimea with drones
Russia accused Ukraine early Friday of attacking its Black Sea navy base in the port of Novorossiysk with sea drones.
Novorossiysk is just across the water from Crimea, where Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it thwarted another attack by Ukraine overnight, taking down 13 drones.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Russian ships patrolling the perimeter of the naval base destroyed two Ukrainian sea drones.
Footage published on Russian social media channels appeared to show a ship firing into the sea and a burning object exploding. Ukrainian agencies carried footage from social media channels they suggested showed a Russian ship listing to one side after the attack.
The Associated Press could not verify the videos. Ukrainian officials have not commented on the attack, in keeping with the country’s security policy.
Minutes after confirming the attack on the Black Sea port, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it had also repelled another attack by Ukraine on Moscow-annexed Crimea. The defense ministry said air defense systems shot down 10 drones and it had electronically jammed another three.
2 Navy sailors accused of spying for China
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.