Ben Wolfgang is a national security correspondent at The Washington Times, a senior member of its Threat Status team, and the host and producer of the award-winning Threat Status Podcast. Ben covers national security, foreign policy, military affairs, the defense industry and the rapidly evolving landscape of military technology. A Pennsylvania native, he joined The Washington Times in 2011 after serving as a political reporter at The Republican-Herald in Pottsville, Pa. Over the course of his career, Ben has covered the White House, Congress, and four presidential campaigns. His reporting has earned recognition from some of journalism's most respected organizations, including the Virginia Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists' Washington, D.C. Chapter, among other honors. Ben has interviewed heads of state, chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, senior military commanders, cabinet secretaries, senior government officials, and the CEOs of many of the nation's largest and most influential defense companies. Ben is a frequent guest on broadcast media, with appearances on C-SPAN, the Sirius XM POTUS channel, and other outlets. He can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
About 300 Americans are desperately trying to get out of Afghanistan ahead of President Biden's Tuesday withdrawal deadline, top administration officials said Sunday.
The Defense Department on Saturday identified all 13 of the U.S. service members who were killed during Thursday's ISIS-K terrorist attack at the Kabul airport.
A Marine Corps battalion commander was relieved of his post late Friday after posting a video to social media blasting the military's handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying Pentagon leaders should be held accountable for the foreign policy "ineptitude" seen in the Biden administration.
U.S. drones targeted ISIS-K extremists in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, Pentagon officials said, in the first retaliation against the terrorist group a day after 13 American troops were killed and nearly 20 others wounded in an attack at the Kabul airport.
The father of a Marine killed during Thursday's terrorist attack at the Kabul airport believes President Biden "turned his back" on the young service member and suggested that the U.S. made a grave error by trusting the Taliban to conduct security searches at the facility.
It boasts only a few thousand fighters in its ranks, but the Islamic State-Khorasan -- or ISIS-K -- has built its reputation on high-profile, horrific terrorist attacks, from a brutal assault on an Afghan maternity ward 15 months ago to Thursday's dual suicide bombings that killed civilians and American troops at Kabul's airport.
Taliban leaders tried to rewrite history this week, arguing that there is "no proof" longtime al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was involved with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
President Biden vowed to "hunt down" the terrorists who struck a major blow against America on Thursday after suicide bombers and gunmen killed at least 13 U.S. troops and dozens of Afghans at the Kabul airport, with military leaders warning more attacks are likely during the final days before the president's Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw.
The last-ditch effort to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan was upended Wednesday night amid a serious terror threat believed to be from the Islamic State's Afghan affiliate, with the State Department warning U.S. citizens to immediately flee sections of the Kabul airport.
The massive U.S. military-led airlift from Kabul turned toward a rocky home stretch Wednesday, with the Biden administration laying out its plan to save a final 1,500 Americans stuck in Afghanistan over the coming days as chaos continues to close in around the country's only international airport.
U.S. forces late Tuesday night rescued more than a dozen Americans trapped in Kabul and flew them via helicopter to the city's airport, Pentagon officials said, marking at least the third time troops have exited the airport perimeter and bypassed Taliban checkpoints.
The Pentagon on Wednesday morning blasted visits by two U.S. lawmakers to the Kabul airport a day earlier, saying the unannounced trip hampered American evacuation efforts and pulled military resources away from the mission at hand.
Republican lawmakers on Wednesday put new pressure on President Biden to actively support Afghan resistance fighters who have promised to never surrender to the Islamist Taliban.
The Taliban clamped down on the mass exodus of Afghans from Kabul airport on Tuesday while the Pentagon said it is mounting a frantic push to grow the American military-led evacuation mission over the coming days -- even as the Biden administration struggles to clarify how many Americans are still stranded in Afghanistan and how many Afghan's qualify as evacuees.
Taliban leaders said Tuesday they will no longer allow Afghans to leave the country and that they expect the U.S. to complete its full military withdrawal from the Kabul airport by Aug. 31.
The Taliban on Monday threatened violence against any American troops who remain in Kabul past Aug. 31, while President Biden faced new questions about whether the U.S. could or should be aiding thousands of Afghan resistance fighters now preparing for their own potentially bloody showdown with Taliban insurgents.
Taliban leaders warned Monday that U.S. and British troops will face "consequences" if they continue evacuations at Kabul's international airport past President Biden's self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan.
U.S. troops engaged in a shootout at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul early Monday morning, Pentagon officials said, with at least one Afghan security officer killed after a gunman opened fire on troops guarding the entrance to the facility.
President Biden's decision to bypass his military advisers and order a complete withdrawal has left tens of thousands of Americans and friendly Afghans trapped by Taliban terrorist brigades.