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An Afghan refugee faced online harassment after tweeting out a photo showing his meager food rations at Fort Bliss in El Paso. Hamed Ahmadi, 28, a Fulbright semi-finalist, tweeted the photo showing some anemic chicken slices and fruit to highlight the unglamorous life he now faced as a refugee. “The point of that tweet was not … to be complaining, to be very critical,” Mr. Ahmadi told The Independent. “I was just describing a situation of Afghan refugees that are in the situation that they never really wanted to be in.” Unfortunately, Twitter isn’t the place for nuance and he...

Ted Cruz claimed Afghan refugees can call an uber to leave their holding location in the U.S. as Republican criticism of the Biden administration's vetting process ramped up ahead of the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan. The criticism came amid a report that an Afghan man who had been convicted of rape and had been deported from the U.S. was allowed to board an Afghan evacuation flight to America. Cruz is one several Republican lawmakers who have criticized President Joe Biden's handling of the situation in Afghanistan.

Fort Bliss officials have confirmed that refugees from Afghanistan arrived at the military post on Saturday (21 Aug) and they’re expecting more arrivals to continue in the days to come. According to a press release from Fort Bliss, the Army post is one of three military installations temporarily housing Afghans. A thousand service members will help with what Fort Bliss is referring to as “Operation Allies Refuge”

Multiple Fort Bliss soldiers were injured after ingesting an "unknown substance" during a field training exercise on Thursday, according to the Texas military post. "Fort Bliss is investigating an incident involving 11 Fort Bliss Soldiers injured after ingesting an unknown substance during a field training exercise, today," Fort Bliss Public Affairs said in a news release Thursday. Two of the soldiers are in critical condition.

Talks have been bubbling in recent months about making major route changes to Interstate 14, but the primary organization behind the push says it’s facing resistance from a West Texas representative and the state’s senior senator. Regional transportation lobby group Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance (MOTRAN) has pushed to change the congressionally approved western route of I-14, also known as the Forts to Ports Highway and the Gulf Coast Strategic Highway System. Forts to Ports aims to connect Fort Bliss in El Paso with Fort Hood in Central Texas and Fort Polk in Louisiana. The plan also connects to military deployment ports...

U.S. authorities are investigating an illegal immigrantion smuggling operation allegedly run by active duty military soldiers out of the Ft. Bliss U.S. Army post in El Paso, Texas. Ft. Bliss is headquarters for El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), a federal tactical operational intelligence center. According to sources and documents, two U.S. soldiers, Marco Antonio Nava, Jr. and Joseph Cleveland, were arrested last Saturday by border patrol officers at Falfurias, Texas Border Patrol Station Checkpoint attempting to smuggle two Mexican citizens into the U.S. The Mexicans were riding in the back seat of the car. Upon their arrest, the soldiers, who...

ISIS is operating a camp just a few miles from El Paso, Texas, according to Judicial Watch sources that include a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector. The exact location where the terrorist group has established its base is around eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as “Anapra” situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Another ISIS cell to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in Puerto Palomas, targets the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming for easy access to the United States, the same knowledgeable...

A Middle Eastern woman was caught surveilling a U.S. port of entry on the Mexican border holding a sketchbook with Arabic writing and drawings of the facility and its security system, federal law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch. The woman has been identified as 23-year-old Leila Abdelrazaq, according to a Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) report obtained by JW this week. Abdelrazaq appeared to have two accomplices, a 31-year-old man named Gabriel Schivone and a 28-year-old woman named Leslie Mcafee. CBP agents noticed the trio "observing the facilities" at the Port of Mariposa in Nogales, Arizona on December 2. Schivone...

KFOX14 exclusive: video obtained of Fort Bliss soldier shows moments before his death while in custody Updated: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 | Erika Castillo More Sharing Services 5K EL PASO, Texas - An active-duty Fort Bliss soldier self-reported for a two day DWI sentence at the El Paso County Jail in 2012 but died before he saw the light of day or his family again. In July 2012, KFOX14 anchor Erika Castillo reported on the story of the mysterious circumstances surrounded the death of Sgt. James Brown while he was in jail. KFOX14 fought all the way to the Texas...

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Gov. Perry Visits Troops Deploying to West Africa in Fight against Ebola More than 500 troops from the 36th Engineer Brigade, 1st Medical Brigade and 85th Civil Affairs Brigade stationed at Ft. Hood are expected to deploy to Liberia by the end of this month. Approximately 200 troops stationed at Ft. Bliss, but assigned to aviation units at Ft. Hood, will also deploy. Their mission will be constructing facilities to be used in the housing and care of Ebola patients. The troops will not have contact with Ebola patients. The servicemen and women from Ft. Hood are part of a...

A warning bulletin was issued Friday to federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources on an imminent terror attack on the border.Breitbart.com obtained a copy of the leaked document. The document shows James O’Keefe crossing the border in a Osama bin Laden mask.(photo from Breitbart.com) El Paso, Texas media is reporting Fort Bliss announced enhanced security measures on Sunday. The announcement came after the conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch issued an urgent report on Friday based on government sources who warned of possible Islamist terrorist attacks on the Texas-Mexico border. Included in the Judicial Watch report was word from...

Army officials say one thing that could have helped prevent last week’s shooting at Fort Hood is better information sharing with commanders about the mental and behavioral health histories of incoming soldiers.The shooter, Spc. Ivan Lopez, 34, had arrived at Fort Hood, Texas, in February after being stationed for four years at Fort Bliss, Texas. By the time of his transfer, Lopez had a history of mental health issues, including anxiety and depression, and was prescribed a number of prescription drugs, including Ambien. But receiving commanders at Fort Hood would not have been privy to Lopez’s health history.“Here's the biggest...

New Mexico -- An active duty member of the U.S. Army has admitted to his role in smuggling illegal aliens for what authorities are calling a Mexican “transnational criminal organization,” according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. federal court. The soldier, Carlos Vives Feliciano, is described in the court documents as being “an active member of the United States Army, stationed at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas.” He was caught by U.S. Border Patrol in a vehicle with another man carrying what authorities have described as as “alien smuggling load.” Though the U.S. authorities do not specifically label the...

EL PASO, Texas — The endless desert that makes up Fort Bliss looks a lot like places where the United States fought its recent wars or where it might fight its next one. Tanks are manned by soldiers whose faces are wrapped against the blowing sand. Dust devils rise, stagger and fall to the desert floor. The Army’s 1st Armored Division, based at Fort Bliss, served in Iraq and Afghanistan. For Maj. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, the division’s past — and the scenarios for its future — have pushed him to change Fort Bliss in ways that, at first, seem...

FORT BLISS, Texas - Five Fort Bliss soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, were killed over the weekend in a bomb blast in southern Afghanistan. "The toll of this has hit this community hard," Fort Bliss spokesman Maj. Joe Buccino said Monday. "This brings it home." The soldiers killed were: 1st Lt. Brandon James Landrum, 26, Lawton, Okla.; Staff Sgt. Francis Gene Phillips IV, 28, Meridian, N.Y.; Spc. Kevin Cardoza, 19, Mercedes, Texas; Spc. Brandon Joseph Prescott, 24, Bend, Ore.; and Spc. Thomas Paige Murach, 22, Meridian, Idaho. The soldiers were more than halfway through a...

Washington (CNN) -- In a critical indication of growing U.S. military involvement in the civil war in Syria, CNN has learned Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is ordering the deployment of up to 200 troops to Jordan, according to two Defense Department officials. The troops, which will come from the headquarters of the 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss, Texas, "creates an additional capability" beyond what has been there, one official said. The group will give the United States the ability to "potentially form a joint task force for military operations, if ordered," he said. The new deployment will include communications...

President Barack Obama was greeted with fleeting applause and extended periods of silence as he offered profuse praise to soldiers and their families during an Aug. 31 speech in Fort Bliss, Texas. His praise for the soldiers — and for his own national-security policies — won cheers from only a small proportion of the soldiers and families in the cavernous aircraft-hanger. The audience remains quiet even when the commander-in-chief thanked the soldiers’ families, and cited the 198 deaths of their comrades in Iraq and Afghanistan. The audience’s reaction was so flat that the president tried twice to elicit a reaction...

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday tried to reassure U.S. soldiers, a group hit hard by high unemployment, that the Fed is working to strengthen the economy. In a speech at Fort Bliss, Bernanke told the soldiers and their families that the Fed is trying to lower unemployment. He talked about the Fed's policies of keeping short-term rates near zero and buying securities to try and lower longer-term rates, such as mortgages. Many veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are returning home to find few jobs and limited prospects. The unemployment rate for veterans of those...

EL PASO, Texas -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will be hosting a town hall meeting at Fort Bliss in El Paso with soldiers and their families and greet military personnel returning from combat. Bernanke's trip to Fort Bliss is his first visit to an Army installation. It will also be his first visit to the state after GOP presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry said earlier this year Texans would treat him "ugly" if he continued lowering interest rates. Perry and other critics say that policy is akin to recklessly printing money. Another Texan seeking the presidency,...