IS attack on U.S. convoy kills 8 Afghans, wounds 3 US soldiers
A suicide car bomber struck a U.S. military convoy in the Afghan capital May 3, killing at least eight Afghan civilians and wounding three U.S. service members in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
Najib Danish, deputy spokesman for the Interior Ministry, confirmed the toll and said another 25 Afghan civilians were wounded in the morning rush-hour attack near the U.S. Embassy, which destroyed several civilian vehicles
U.S. Navy Cpt. Bill Salvin, a military spokesman, confirmed that three soldiers were wounded in the attack.
The Islamic State group claimed the attack in a statement carried by its Aamaq media arm. An affiliate of the extremist group has gathered strength in recent years, and is now at war with both the U.S.-backed government and the much larger Taliban insurgency.
Afghan forces have struggled to combat both groups since the U.S. and NATO officially concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, switching to a support and counterterrorism role. The U.S. has more than 8,000 troops in the country.
The Taliban and IS both aspire to overthrow the Afghan government and impose a harsh version of Islamic law, but they are fiercely divided over leadership and tactics. AP
Holloman AFB investigates cause of drone crash
Officials at an Air Force base in southern New Mexico say no one was injured after a drone crashed during a training mission.
The Alamogordo Daily News reports the 49th Wing Public Affairs at Holloman Air Force Base says first responders arrived at the Tuesday crash site to assist military and civilian personnel.
Public Affairs spokesman Arlan Ponder says the MQ-9 Reaper had been on its way back to the base when it crashed.
He says an investigation will be done to determine what caused the drone to go down.
The MQ-9 Reaper is an armed, remotely piloted aircraft assigned to the base’s 9th Attack Squadron. It is deployed against dynamic execution targets and used in intelligence operations.
The aircraft can cost up to $12 million. AP
U.S. firm in Iraq ignores smuggling, security risks for F-16s
An American company that was paid nearly $700 million to secure an Iraqi base for F-16 fighter jets turned a blind eye to alcohol smuggling, theft, security violations, and allegations of sex trafficking. It then terminated investigators who uncovered wrongdoing, an Associated Press investigation has found.
Documents and interviews with two former internal investigators and a half-dozen former or current Sallyport Global staff describe schemes at Iraq’s Balad Air Base that were major contract violations at best and, if proven, illegal.
The fired investigators say they uncovered evidence that Sallyport employees were involved in sex trafficking. Staff on base routinely flew smuggled alcohol onto the base in such high volumes that a plane once seesawed on the tarmac under the weight. AP
Bills seek link of aerospace tax breaks, state workforce
Frustrated by the loss of thousands of Boeing jobs in recent years, Washington State lawmakers are weighing two measures that would tie Boeing’s eligibility for tax breaks to the amount of people they employ in the state.
The House Finance Committee heard public testimony on the measures May 2. The bills are a tweaked version of bills introduced in previous years that never gained traction in the Democratic-controlled House, but have received renewed interest after another round of Boeing layoffs were announced last month.
“For me this is a matter of taxpayer accountability,” Democratic Rep. Noel Frame, the sponsor of one of the bills, said at the hearing.
In a 2013 special session, the Legislature approved a suite of tax incentives aimed at Boeing and the aerospace sector meant to ensure that the 777X was produced in Everett. Most of the tax breaks were first approved in 2003 and set to expire in 2024, but the new legislation extended them until 2040. Those tax breaks are expected to save the aerospace giant more than $8 billion in taxes through 2040.
But Frame noted that since that time, the company has shed more than 12,000 jobs in the state. In the past year alone, Boeing Commercial Airplanes reduced its workforce by more than 9,000, mainly through buyouts and retirements.
At the end of March, the division employed nearly 74,200 people, down from over 83,000 at the end of 2015.
Bill McSherry, vice president of government operations, said that any change to their tax incentives “would prevent Boeing from being able to respond to future market challenges.”
Frame’s bill would require Boeing to meet an annual employment baseline of 70,000 jobs in Washington state in order to qualify for its preferential business and occupation tax rate. AP