Army criminal investigators scrutinize key U.S. general

Army criminal investigators are reviewing an “incident” involving the top U.S. general overseeing military affairs in the Middle East, defense officials said Friday, a potential complication for the Biden administration as it continues to grapple with a regionwide crisis spawned by the war in Gaza.

The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) is “aware of an alleged incident and is currently looking into it,” spokesman Mark Lunardi said in a statement. In a separate email, he confirmed that Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, was a party to their review and said he had no additional information to provide.

Army headquarters and senior officials on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s staff at the Pentagon all referred questions to Army CID. A Central Command official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity, said that while he was aware of media reports about the issue, he had no information to provide.

The news site Military.com reported Thursday night that Kurilla was under investigation for pushing a U.S. airman during a September trip to Israel. Citing an unidentified defense official with direct knowledge of the incident, the report said that Kurilla had become frustrated with his communications access and got into an argument with a member of the flight crew on a C-17, an Air Force transport plane.

Army CID’s statement stopped short of saying that a criminal investigation has been opened against the general.

No other officials contacted by the Washington Post disputed other aspects of the account, but some said they could not comment because the review is ongoing.

The situation casts a shadow over Kurilla, a decorated combat commander who has maintained a low profile throughout his tour leading Central Command despite an intense focus on the U.S. military’s role supporting Israel, its off-and-on skirmishes with militants in Syria and Iraq who are closely allied with Tehran, and ongoing efforts to degrade Yemen’s Houthi movement, whose attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea have prompted U.S. airstrikes.

Kurilla, 58, has overseen Centcom since April 2022 in what is typically a three-year assignment. He previously led some of the Army’s top organizations, including the XVIII Airborne Corps, the 82nd Airborne Division and the 75th Ranger Regiment, and he earned two Purple Hearts for wounds suffered in combat in Iraq.

Kurilla has made multiple trips to the Middle East this year amid the Biden administration’s attempts to navigate the crisis there, visiting Israel at least four times since the fighting in Gaza began.

In congressional testimony in March, he assessed that the Middle East faced its “most volatile security situation in the past half century” and that the deadly Hamas militant attack on Israel in October 2023 has created the conditions for adversaries to “sow instability” in the region and beyond.

Kurilla was back in Israel this week, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Wednesday.