While North Korea has never been forthright with their nuclear capabilities, Washington officials stated that tiny communist nation does have the capability to hit the mainland of the U.S. with nuclear strikes. The Pentagon went on to state that they are prepared for such a situation.
“I’m pretty confident that we’re going to knock down the numbers that are going to be shot,” Admiral Bill Gortney, who heads the U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said of a potential strike.
Every few years North Korea taunts Western nations with allusions to the country’s nuclear capabilities. Throughout the past several years, they have continually announced successful nuclear tests.
Last month, North Korea’s space agency announced Pyongyang was building a new satellite and getting ready to launch the satellite for possible long range missile attacks. The country continues to state that the rocket launches are part of a legitimate space program that wants to put satellites into orbit. North Korea has defied past sanctions and international warnings by continuing to conduct missile tests.
In March, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency reported that North Korea could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile this year.
In light of recent reports on North Korea’s possible nuclear capabilities, the U.S. military is investing to modernize its current missile defense system with new sensors and radars in order to better identify potential launches.
“We’re ready for him [Kim Jong Un], and we’re ready 24 hours a day…,” Gortney said.
Russian officials are planning to put a forward operating base in Syria according to U.S. officials.
Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis told a group of reporters that the steady flow of equipment and personnel into the region is leading intelligence officers to that conclusion. The Russian government has also been sending in heavy equipment and weapons into the base via cargo flights.
“We have seen indications in recent days that Russia has moved people and things into the area around Latakia and the air base there that suggests that it intends to establish some sort of a forward air operating base,” Davis said.
At least two flights a day have been taking place according to Davis.
Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashir al-Assad and has stopped many actions in the United Nations against Assad through the use of their permanent veto in the U.N. Security Council.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the U.S. does not understand Russia’s ultimate goal in Syria.
“Clearly, they are providing more assistance,” Kirby said. “But the ultimate goal? The ultimate intent here? I think there’s still a degree of opaqueness about that.”
The Pentagon says an investigation into an accidental shipment of live anthrax to labs in nine states and South Korea was significantly larger and lasted over a decade.
The anthrax, sent from the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, has been shipped to 51 sites in the United States and overseas in the last 10 year. The samples were all believed to have contained irradiated and inactivated virus.
The officials admitted they are testing 400 additional batches and if they are found to be live, the number of locations with live virus could significantly jump.
Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said that 31 lab workers have ben undergoing post-exposure treatment as a precaution but that the public is safe.
“We know of no risk to the general public from these samples,” Work said.
The admission of the shipments of live anthrax are part of a pattern of accidents involving viruses that have observers questioning the way the military is handling potentially deadly pathogens. A year ago, the CDC admitted a dozen employees may have been exposed to live anthrax and that another lab contaminated a flu virus with the deadly H5N1 bird flu and then shipped it out to another laboratory.
Less than a year ago, live smallpox vials were found in a storage lab at the National Institutes of Health.
The Pentagon has announced that three major ISIS leaders have been killed in the last few weeks and that the airstrikes are having a “significant impact” on the terrorist organization.
General Martin Dempsey granted an interview to the Wall Street Journal where he said the highest ranked terroristed taken out in the airstrikes is Haji Mutazz, deputy to ISIS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“We believe that the loss of these key leaders degrades ISIL’s ability to command and control current operations against Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), including Kurdish and other local forces in Iraq,” Kirby told the Journal.
“While we do not discuss the intelligence and targeting details of our operations, it is important to note that leadership, command and control nodes, facilities, and equipment are always part of our targeting calculus.”
General Dempsey said that the U.S. is not attacking the group as if it was a nation despite their attempts to claim they are a new country.
“It is in the context of how to fight a network,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman added. “It is not a country. They have claimed it, but they are not. They are a network, so they have finances, they have logistics and they have leaders.”
The United States and Arab allies began a series of airstrikes on the terrorist group ISIS.
The strikes happened inside Syria near the town of Raqqa, the self-proclaimed “capital” for the terrorists.
“I can confirm that U.S. military and partner nation forces are undertaking military action against ISIS terrorists in Syria using a mix of fighter, bomber and Tomahawk Land Attack missiles,” Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters. “Given that these operations are ongoing, we are not in a position to provide additional details at this time.”
In addition to U.S. forces, aircraft from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Intelligence reports say that most of the 30,000 ISIS terrorists are inside Syria and without strikes inside that country it would be impossible to break the ISIS command structure.
The strikes come just days after 60,000 Syrian Kurds fled to Turkey because of advances from the terrorists.
A U.S. drone strike targeted the leader of an Islamic terrorist group in Somalia on Monday.
Pentagon officials confirmed the U.S. targeted the head of Al-Shabaab, a Al-Qaeda related group that had been fighting against the Somalia government.
“We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information as and when appropriate,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said.
Somali officials say that Ahmed Abdi Godane, the leader of al-Shabaab, might have been killed in the strike and they’re working to confirm his death. The air strike came after al-Shabaab attacked a high security prison in an attempt to free several terrorists. All terrorists were reported killed in the assault along with three government soldiers and two civilians.
The U.S. has periodically carried out air strikes in Somalia against terrorist headquarters and training centers.
Al-Shabaab is mostly active in rural areas of the country after losing control of major cities in 2011 after an offensive from Somali and African Union forces.
On Thursday night, President Obama authorized U.S. military action against the Sunni extremist advance on the Kurdish capital of Erbil leading to the first of many strikes that hit Islamic State artillery positions in northern Iraq.
Five hundred pound bombs were dropped by U.S. F-18 fighters just outside of Erbil according to the Pentagon.
President Obama claims the goal of these strikes is to stop militants from seizing Erbil and aiding the Yazidis, a religious minority.
Washington has considered direct military involvement in the past, but has delayed action for two reasons: the slowing of the Sunni militants advance in the past and to pressure Iraqi lawmakers to form a new government that might counter the militants.
China’s Defense Ministry has confirmed long rumored development of a new hypersonic aircraft that could attack thousands of miles from its launch point.
The hypersonic glide vehicle would be launched using an intercontinental ballistic missile and could travel at speeds of Mach 10. The device would be very difficult to detect by warning systems because unlike the missiles the glider would not enter space.
Military affairs analysts told the Washington Free Beacon the weapon is part of weapons called an “assassin’s mace.” Those weapons are designed to be used by a weaker military force to gain an advantage against a superior foe.
A Pentagon spokesman said that they were aware of the Chinese test.
The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and two subcommittee chairman called the test concerning and that it showed a fast technological leap by the Chinese military.
The Pentagon told FoxNews Tuesday that as long as the government is shut down they would be stopping death benefits to the families of troops killed in combat.
“Unfortunately, as a result of the shutdown, we do not have the legal authority to make death gratuity payments at this time,” Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman, told Fox. “However, we are keeping a close eye on those survivors who have lost loved ones serving in the Department of Defense.”
House Speaker John Boehner said that the House of Representatives would be holding a vote Wednesday to restore funding for the payments.
“I think it’s disgraceful that they’re withholding these benefits,” Boehner said.
Five troops died over the weekend in Afghanistan. Four of the bodies will be returned to Dover Air Force base Wednesday. However, the families of the dead will have to pay their own travel to Dover because the Pentagon says they can’t pay those bills. The Defense Department usually pays for that travel and for transporting the family and remains to home states for private funerals.
On the heels of the discovery of a Pentagon training document calling the founding fathers of America “extremists” and labeling conservative organizations as hate groups, a training document has been uncovered calling evangelical Christians and Catholics as an “extremist” group in the same category as al-Qaeda and Hamas.
The document also lists Mormons on the extremist list along with Sunni Muslims. Strangely, Shia Muslims were not listed as an extremist group. Continue reading →
