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n Air Force Special Operations Command MC-130 on a humanitarian flight in Mali last week was struck by small arms fire, causing minor damage to its fuselage, reports Stars and Stripes. The MC-130 from the 352nd Special Operations Group at RAF Mildenhall, Britain, was on its second run to a military garrison that had been under siege from an armed force, possibly Taureg rebels. The AFSOC aircraft and aircrew were in Mali to participate in a bilateral exercise called Flintlock 2007, when the Mali government asked for assistance to resupply its garrison.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China-focused military briefing Oct. 27, part of a biweekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonic weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What we…