New Pentagon chief tells US troops: ‘It’s time to come home’

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has warned of emerging cyber and space threats, along with the prospect of much bigger wars. His remarks come amid concerns over China's growing military assertiveness.

Pentagon Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley said 18 warplanes will be sent to Afghanistan to protect US troops.

The Department of Defense is canceling a controversial $10 billion cloud computing contract that had been awarded to Microsoft (MSFT) over Amazon (AMZN) under the Trump administration. The department announced Tuesday that it is canceling the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract that was previously awarded to Microsoft. It will instead seek new solicitations for an updated Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract from Amazon and Microsoft.

US Central Command said seven facilities have been handed over to the Afghan Ministry of Defense.

Around 16,000 people were evacuated over the past 24 hours from Afghanistan through the Kabul airport, US Army Major General William Taylor tells reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon as international airlift operations sped up ahead of an August 31 deadline.

The United States has completed its evacuation mission, allowing the Taliban to take full control of Kabul airport. The departure comes almost exactly 20 years after the US and allied troops invaded Afghanistan.

The hardline Islamist Taliban celebrate their total return to power with gunfire after the last US troops flew out of Afghanistan to end two decades of war. Images posted by Ahmadullah Muttaqi, the Chief of Taliban multimedia branch, cultural commission, show the Taliban entering Kabul airport after US forces abandoned the frenzied airlift that saw more than 123,000 people flee life after the group's takeover.

"We apologize and we will endeavor to learn from this horrible mistake," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby says of a drone strike in the Afghan capital Kabul that mistakenly killed 10 civilians, including children, during the chaotic US pullout last month. Kirby was delivering the message on behalf of US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during a press briefing at the Pentagon.

US cyber defense capabilities are at "kindergarten level" in some government departments, the Pentagon's former chief software officer told a British newspaper.

The first contingent of 2,000 additional US soldiers has arrived near Frankfurt, with others touching down near Poland's border with Ukraine. The White House says the troops will protect eastern NATO members from potential Russian aggression.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the addition to Moscow's nuclear arsenal will make foes "think twice." The US said it was properly notified of the test and did not consider it a threat.

American military leaders said the soldiers would help counter the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab in the Horn of Africa country.