Army bringing in more assets to reach missing US soldiers’ vehicle in muddy bog in Lithuania
U.S. Army
(WASHINGTON) — The search for four U.S. Army soldiers who went missing in their vehicle during a scheduled training exercise near Pabradė, Lithuania, is ongoing Friday, with officials bringing in more assets to help with the recovery mission, the Army said.
The soldiers, who are all based in Fort Stewart, Georgia, went missing on Tuesday while operating a M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle, the Army said. On Wednesday, the 70-ton vehicle was found submerged in about 15 feet of water and mud in a training area, the Army said.
“Most likely, the M88 drove into the swamp,” and the vehicle “may have just gone diagonally to the bottom,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene told ABC News via phone.
Sakaliene said Thursday that the search has shifted from rescue to a “complicated” recovery mission. The Army said crews are “working around the clock to drain water, dig, and dredge the mud that surrounds the vehicle.”
“The area around the site is incredibly wet and marshy and doesn’t support the weight of the equipment needed for the recovery of the 70-ton vehicle without significant engineering improvements,” the Army said in a statement Friday. “Draining the area has been slow and difficult due to ground water seepage.”
“A large capacity slurry pump, cranes, more than 30 tons of gravel, and subject matter experts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are just some of the assets that arrived on site,” the Army said. “The Polish Armed Forces have also volunteered a unit of military engineers, which is bringing in an additional water pump, tracked recovery vehicles, other additional equipment and supplies needed along with 150 personnel.”
A specialized U.S. Navy dive crew is also expected to arrive on site by Saturday, the Army said.
“This will be a long and difficult recovery operation, but we are absolutely committed to bringing our soldiers home,” Maj. Gen. Curtis Taylor said in a statement.
Sakaliene said Thursday the Lithuanians will also remain dedicated to the recovery.
“Working with American soldiers has always been close to our hearts,” she said. “They are not just allies — they are family to us.”
(FORT HUACHUCA, AZ) — U.S. Army soldiers will soon be patrolling a 170-mile buffer zone along the southern border with Mexico in a newly created “National Defense Area” in Arizona and New Mexico.
It’s part of the Trump administration’s efforts to use the U.S. military to stop the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States.
The large swath of area will stretch 60-feet-deep along federal lands running the length of the border and will be considered a part of Fort Huachuca in Arizona, meaning that, just as at any Army base, trespassers would be apprehended by soldiers and held until turned over to law enforcement.
Some analysts see it as a way to militarize the border and skirt a federal law — the Posse Comitatus Act — that prohibits U.S. military personnel from carrying out law enforcement duties: by declaring the federal property a military base where migrants crossing into can be detained.
“Last week, President Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum directing federal agencies administering federal land on the border to make land available to the Defense Department in a new national defense area,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday.
“This new National Defense Area spans more than 170 miles across our border in New Mexico,” said Leavitt. “But in in the coming weeks, this administration will add more than 90 miles in the state of Texas.”
“This National Defense Area will enhance our ability to detect, interdict and prosecute the illegal aliens, criminal gangs and terrorists who were able to invade our country without consequence for the past four years under the Biden administration,” said Leavitt. “It will also bolster our defenses against fentanyl and other dangerous narcotics that have been poisoning our communities.”
U.S. officials told ABC News that the initial phase of the new area will stretch from Fort Huachuca in southeastern Arizona eastward into New Mexico.
The designation of a National Defense Area will apply only to federal lands that have been newly transferred to the control of the Defense Department and will not apply to privately held lands or territory belong to Native American reservations. That means it will be non-contiguous but will be in effect for much of New Mexico’s border with Mexico, which stretches for nearly 180 miles of the state’s border.
U.S. Army troops will be operating in what is essentially a buffer zone formally known as the Roosevelt Reservation that includes federal lands in California, Arizona, and New Mexico on the border with Mexico. In 1907, to prevent smuggling, President Theodore Roosevelt declared that a 60-foot-wide buffer zone on public lands along the border with Mexico belongs to the federal government.
Two U.S. officials told ABC News it was still to be determined whether the new authority would be applied to Texas given that the Roosevelt Reservation does not apply to lands in that state.
According to the officials, the U.S. Army will soon begin placing signs on both sides of that 60-foot buffer zone warning that they are about to enter Defense Department property and could be apprehended for trespassing.
Because of natural barriers along the border, the Roosevelt Reservation in some cases may stretch a mile into U.S. territory.
Some of the territory to now be considered an Army base already has existing fencing on the border but in some areas does not. Regardless, the Army will place signage in both English and Spanish warning that any trespassers into the area will be apprehended.
The move by the Trump administration has drawn criticism from legal analysts who describe it as a way to get around the U.S. military having law enforcement on the border which is done by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Currently 10,000 U.S. military personnel have been authorized to serve along the border, but only in a support role to CBP.
“The president’s plan would empower U.S. soldiers patrolling the area to take on a civilian law enforcement function: apprehending and detaining migrants crossing the border into the U.S. Deploying the military to enforce civilian law is a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act,” said Elizabeth Goitein, the senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
“Under emergency powers law, the president is required to seek congressional approval for any transfer of federal land to the Defense Department,” said Goitein.
(LONDON and DELHI) — More than 26 people were killed and dozens more were injured overnight in Pakistan by Indian aerial attacks, Pakistani officials said.
The Pakistani military said the assault amounted to a “blatant act of aggression,” a characterization disputed by an Indian official, who said it was a “measured, non-escalatory, proportionate and responsible.”
The strike, which followed Tuesday’s missile assault, came amid rising tension as India continued to blame Pakistan for a deadly attack in April in the disputed Kashmir region, a claim that Pakistan denies. That militant attack, known as the Pahalgam incident, left 26 people dead in Indian-held Kashmir.
Pakistani military officials on Tuesday had vowed to respond from the “air and ground.” Officials this morning repeated that warning, saying it “reserves the right to respond, in self-defense, at a time, place, and manner of its choosing.” A statement released by the Pakistan National Security Commitee after a meeting of the committee says “the Armed Forces of Pakistan have duly been authorized to undertake corresponding actions in this regard.”
The Indian Army confirmed New Delhi’s latest strikes on Wednesday, saying in a statement that its forces were “responding appropriately in a calibrated manner.”
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said India’s strikes overnight amounted to a preemptive action, saying Pakistan did not take sufficient steps against “terrorist infrastructure on its territory or on territory under its control.”
Two military officials also described the attack, which they said involved nine locations and lasted about 25 minutes. The officials claim the targets were destroyed and that the Indian military is prepared to respond to what she characterizes as “Pakistani misadventures” that would “escalate the situation.”
Pakistan said the airstrikes hit numerous locations in Pakistan, not just in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan also claimed that India hit a hydroelectric dam in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
At least 46 people were injured in Pakistan, military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in a press conference on Wednesday. The country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had summoned India’s top diplomat in Pakistan.
The attack “constitutes a clear violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding, “The Indian side was warned that such reckless behavior poses a serious threat to regional peace and stability.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
Displaced Palestinians crowd with outstretched hands and containers to receive hot meals distributed by aid organizations at the Jabalia Refugee Camp in northern Gaza City, Gaza on April 24, 2025. The ongoing blockade and military assaults by Israel have deepened the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, leaving thousands in urgent need of food assistance. (Photo by Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(GAZA) — Israeli authorities have blocked supplies — including food, medicine and fuel — from entering the Gaza Strip for more than 50 days.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main UN agency operating in Gaza, said they have run out of flour supplies in the region as of April 24 in a situational update. UNRWA has described the current state on the ground as the worst humanitarian crisis since the war began on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after a Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel left more than 1,200 Israelis dead.
With the blockade of supplies in place, Gaza’s population of approximately 2.1 million people faces a crisis of starvation, disease and despair.
“Food, safe water, shelter, and medical care have become increasingly scarce,” UNRWA said in the update, stating prices for basic goods are soaring while bakeries shut down, and hospitals run out of critical medicine and generator fuel.
Children are bearing the brunt of this man-made disaster, aid agencies said.
“My son suffers from malnutrition,” Mona Al-Raqab, mother to 5-year-old Osama Al-Raqab, told ABC News. “There’s nothing available. No eggs, no milk, no food supplies. Meat, poultry — the things that give us strength and energy to keep going.”
Roseline Bolline, a spokesperson for UNICEF, said Osama’s story is becoming common in Gaza given the current state on the ground.
“He is not the only case. There are thousands of children in his situation suffering very badly,” Bolline told ABC News. “This is a horrible, horrific and unbearable — to watch a child suffer like that.”
Hospital admissions for acute malnutrition have surged in recent months, Bolline said.
“In February, there were 2,027 children admitted for acute malnutrition. In March, that number jumped to 3,669. This is an incredible increase,” she said. “Families are going hungry, suffering to provide food for their children. The prices of products have doubled, and many key types of food have disappeared from markets. We are extremely concerned,” Bolline added.
“Food prices have increased by between 29% to as much as 1,400% above pre-ceasefire levels, with many essential items like dairy, eggs, fruits and meat no longer available on the market,” the UN secretary general spokesperson said at a press briefing Thursday in New York.
The situation inside Gaza’s hospitals is also dire, according to humanitarian agencies.
The blockade has prevented critical medical supplies and fuel to power hospital generators from entering Gaza while the Israel Defense Forces have continued bombing areas across the strip since the collapse of the ceasefire in mid-March.
Fifty people were killed, and 152 people were injured over a 24-hour period from April 23 to April 24 in Gaza, the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health said in a release Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “pressure on Hamas will continue” in remarks at a Holocaust Remembrance Day rally in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening.
Dr. Ahmed Al Farra, head of the pediatric and obstetrics department at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, said the blockade is hurting civilians the most.
“We are talking about pregnant women and children,” he said. “We are facing a lot of suffering from malnutrition in both categories. According to the World Health Organization, Gaza is currently at the fifth degree of starvation — the worst on the global scale.”
Al Farra described a cascade of medical crises stemming from the lack of access to nutrition and healthcare.
“We are talking about the shortage of milk — normal formula and special formula. Pregnant women are delivering premature, underweight babies. This is catastrophic,” Al Farra said. “People are surviving on expired canned goods that often cause food poisoning. You can’t live on that for a year and a half.”
Despite the conditions, UNRWA staff — numbering around 12,000 local Palestinian workers in Gaza — continue to provide essential services.
They deliver 2,600 cubic meters of water and collect 220 tons of waste daily, according to an UNRWA situational update on April 24.
Six out of 22 UNRWA health centers are operational in Gaza as of April 20, the update from the organization said.
Medical teams are also working in 39 medical points across the strip, the organization added.
UNRWA insists that “nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people” and calls for a renewed ceasefire, the dignified release of the remaining hostages, and unimpeded access for humanitarian and commercial supplies.
Netanyahu and his government say the blockade is part of a strategy to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages being held in Gaza.
Fifty-eight hostages remain in Gaza, with 24 of them believed to still be alive. The other 34 are confirmed dead, but their bodies remain in Gaza.
The UN has called for the end of the blockade.
“Turning to the situation in Gaza, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warns that the total blockage of aid and any other supplies — now nearing two months — has led to the depletion of essentials such as fresh food and tents and to the near-exhaustion of other critical supplies for Palestinian civilians,” the UN secretary general spokesperson said at a press briefing on Thursday.
“Children are going hungry. Patients remain untreated. People are dying. It is time to lift those restrictions immediately,” the spokesperson added.
