North Korea has fired another ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan, where it apparently landed, according to numerous media reports.
South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed the report, according to CNN.
“Our military is closely monitoring North Korea and is maintaining readiness posture,” South Korean officials said in a statement.
According to a White House official the projectile was a Pukguksong-2, a medium long-range ballistic missile tested by Pyongyang in February, the first such test by North Korea after the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
It flew about 500 kilometers (more than 300 miles), according to the report.
On Saturday, North Korea’s state KCNA news agency claimed, “Today the U.S. mainland and the Pacific operational theater are within the strike range of the DPRK and the DPRK has all kinds of powerful means for annihilating retaliatory strike.”
The launch from a location near Pukchang came just one week after its latest missile test of the Hwasong-12, its longest-range missile thus far and the tenth launch this year.
North Korea is racing to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that will deliver a nuclear-tipped warhead to the continental United States – its long-avowed goal – and something President Trump has promised not to allow.
Last week former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz, now a senior vice president for policy and programs with the Center for Sescurity Policy told CNBC that Iran is continuing to help North Korea with its weapons technology, as was seen in Sunday’s intermediate ballistic missile test, which appeared to have been a new model capable of reaching U.S. military bases on Guam.
The Syrian army is on the way to liberate the ISIS besieged city of some 100,000 and garrison of Deir Ezzor in the east of the country. The U.S. has trained a few thousand "New Syrian Army" insurgents in Jordan and is reportedly prepared to march these and its own forces from Jordan through the east-Syrian desert all the way up to Raqqa and Deir Ezzor.
A U.S. move from the south up towards the Euphrates would cut off the Syrian government from the whole south-east of the country and from its people in Deir Ezzor. While that area is sparsely populated it also has medium size oil and gas fields and is the land connection to the Syrian allies in Iraq.
A U.S. move from the south up towards the Euphrates would cut off the Syrian government from the whole south-east of the country and from its people in Deir Ezzor. While that area is sparsely populated it also has medium size oil and gas fields and is the land connection to the Syrian allies in Iraq.
With the western part of the country relatively quiet, the Syrian government and its allies decided to finally retake the south-eastern provinces from ISIS. They want to lift the ISIS siege on Deir Ezzor and close the border between Syria and Iraq with its own forces. The move will also block any potential U.S. invasion from the south by retaking the road to al-Tanf and the Syrian-Iraqi border (red arrows). The sovereign Syrian state will not give up half of the country to an illegal occupation by ISIS or the U.S. At the same time as the eastern operations are running consolidation and clearing operations against ISIS in the middle and west of the countries will take place (green arrows).
Yesterday a small battalion size force (~2-300 men) of the regular Syrian army, Syrian National Defense Organization volunteers and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU of the Kata'ib al-Imam Ali) marched on the road from the west towards al-Tanf. They were about 23 kilometers away from the border station when they were attack by U.S. aircraft coming in low from Jordan. The U.S. jets directly fired at the convoy, allegedly after earlier giving some "warning shots". At least one Syrian tank and several other vehicles were destroyed. Six Syrian government forces were reported killed and more were wounded.
The U.S. attack was clearly a willful, illegal attack on Syrian ground against legitimate forces of the sovereign Syrian government. (The Iraqi PMU contingent in Syria is a legitimate allied force under control of the Iraqi prime minister.) There is no clause in international law, no UNSC resolution or anything similar, that could justify such an attack. The U.S. military has no right at all to be at al-Tanf or anywhere else in Syria. There is nothing to "defend" for it. If it dislikes regular Syrian and Iraqi forces moving in their own countries towards their own border station and retaking it from Jihadi "rebels", it can and should move out and go home. Moreover - the U.S. claims it is "fighting ISIS" in Syria. Why then is it attacking the Syrian government forces while these launch a large operation against the very same enemy?
The U.S. has no legitimate aim in Syria. It is somewhat tolerated in the north-east where it helps Syrian-Kurdish forces to fight ISIS and to liberate Raqqa. That does not give it ANY right to occupy Syria's east or to attack Syrian government forces. When Raqqa is done all U.S. forces in the north-east will have to again move out.
The U.S. has a simple choice: Either go in with full force and bear the above consequences, or concede to the sovereign Syrian government and its allies and coordinate with them to retake the country from ISIS and al-Qaeda. This will have to be done as they, not the U.S., see it proper to do. To believe that the U.S. can take the east and convert into some peaceful vassal statelet is pure fantasy. Way too many regional forces and interests are strung against that. There is little grey between these black and white alternatives.
Military tensions on Syria’s borders with Iraq, Jordan and Syria jumped another notch Monday, May 21, on Day 2 of Donald Trump’s foreign trip, with the arrival of the first Russian ground troops in southern Syria for taking up position opposite US and coalition elite units.
...a Russian contingent of paratroops and special forces arrived at Suweida. It linked up with the Syrian army, Hizballah and other pro-Iranian allies already poised to take on the US, Jordanian, British and Norwegian elite units for control of the strategic 600km long Syrian-Iraqi border and its key crossings.
They are the first ground troops Moscow has sent to southern Syria, where hitherto Russian operations were limited to infrequent air strikes..
The United States and Trump administration are resolved to keep this prize from falling into the hands of Iran and its Shiite militias to further its scheme for opening up Tehran’s land routes to Syria and the Mediterranean. Moscow, by its new deployment Sunday, signaled that it was equally set on backing the Syrian-Iranian military bid to thwart Washington’s plan.
Syrian-pro-Iranian-Hizballah force in southern Syria renewed its advance on the Iraqi border, two days after sustaining heavy casualties from a US air strike on its convoys. Syrian military sources reported they captured the Suweida region and another 60 square kilometers. This brought them closer to the strategic Al-Tanf crossing at the Syrian border intersection with Iraq and Jordan, which is held by US and other special operations units.
The arrival Sunday of Russian ground troops to this hotly-contested region offers an acid test for Donald Trump’s assurance to the Saudi royals and Gulf Arab rulers of his administration’s resolve to rein in Iran’s military charge through the Middle East, along with Hizballah, and relegate to the past their depredations in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
The success of the US-led military operation to take and hold the Syrian-Iraqi border will give Trump's policy high kudos. But a battleground defeat at the hands of Russian-Iranian backed Syrian and Hizballah troops would seriously dim the gains of his Middle East trip.
Tens of thousands of supporters of President Hassan Rouhani have poured into the streets of Tehran as night falls to celebrate the incumbent's re-election.
The impromptu rallies snarled traffic in the center of the capital, leaving many drivers to abandon their stuck cars in the middle of major roads.
In the capital's central Vali-e-Asr Square, revelers shot off fireworks and chanted in support of opposition leader Mir Hussein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since 2011. A massive billboard featuring the Iranian flag and urging citizens to vote loomed above the square.
The leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah has congratulated Iran's President Hassan Rouhani for being re-elected to a second term in office saying the wide participation in the vote proves to the world "the greatness of the (Iranian) people and the Islamic rule."
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's comment came in a letter sent to Rouhani Saturday in which he praised the "freedom and sovereignty that the Iranian people enjoy in a region where people are mostly ruled by dictatorial regimes."
Nasrallah was apparently referring to gulf Arab nations that list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Iran is the main backer of Hezbollah and has been financing and arming the militant group since it was founded in the early 1980s.
Hey everyone:
ReplyDeleteCheck out J.D. Farag:
Aloha Prophecy May 21st. It's pretty good!
He's a gd pastor,I get his prophecy updates once a week along with Amirs......Scottie Clarke is really opening doors.
DeleteYou are right Gary, J D is right on the mark. If Trump flip flops on Israel, and it seems he has, then we could be in for the ride of our life. Straight up, in the twinkle of an eye.
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