Despite continued violence and political turmoil in Haiti, the Pentagon says the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince remains open and security continues to be enhanced.
A plan to create a transitional presidential council is moving forward after a majority of Haitian parties and coalitions submitted the names of those charged with finding new leaders for the country, Caribbean officials said Thursday.
The names were provided to a regional trade bloc known as Caricom that is helping lead the transition.
The council will be responsible for choosing an interim prime minister and a council of ministers, as well as help organize general elections, which haven’t been held in nearly a decade.
On Sunday, the U.S. military said it had flown in forces to beef up security at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti and allow nonessential personnel to leave. The neighborhood around the embassy in Port-au-Prince has been largely controlled by gangs.
The U.S. State Department has issued a Level 4 Do Not Travel advisory for Haiti.
The violence has somewhat subsided, although a fire was reported Thursday at the National Penitentiary in downtown Port-au-Prince, one of two prisons attacked more than a week ago. It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was injured or killed in the blaze or how it started.
In another matter, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has confidence in the decision to resume flights of Osprey aircraft in Japan after completing necessary maintenance and training following a fatal crash in southern Japan last November.
The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command announced last Friday that the aircraft was approved to return to service after an “unprecedented” part failure led to the deaths of eight U.S. service members in the crash in Japan.
The entire U.S. Osprey fleet was grounded Dec. 6, a week after that crash. Japan’s military also grounded all of its 14 Ospreys.
Japan’s Defense Ministry has said that each of the U.S. forces will have separate return-to-flight schedules and that Japan and the United States “closely” discussed a timeline for the resumption of Osprey flights in Japan. Aircraft that have completed necessary maintenance and training will return to flight as early as Thursday, the ministry said.
It also said the crash was caused by a part problem, not a faulty Osprey design, and that similar problems can be prevented in the future by taking steps to mitigate the identified cause. It did not provide further details.
Finally, Singh also said that reports suggesting that the Houthis have a new hypersonic missile in their arsenal “are inaccurate.”
“We have no indication that they even have that capability,” Singh said.
The claim was reported by Russia’s state media Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their ongoing attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unnamed official but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine.