The World Braces for North Korea’s Next Act of Defiance and the US Response

The World Braces for North Korea’s Next Act of Defiance and the US Response

In the war on terror, the US Military Commission held a hearing this month to determine if a convicted al-Qaeda operative Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi who rejoined the terrorist group after the Obama administration released him from Guantanamo Bay is an enemy belligerent.

French-mediated talks have led to both sides in the Libyan conflict agreeing to the terms of a cease-fire on Tuesday.

Clashes continue to erupt between Israeli police, Palestinian stone-throwers at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem after it reopened.

Syrian fighter-bomber aircraft broke a cease-fire agreement Monday for the second straight day with airstrikes on districts in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. Russia has deployed four battalions of Russian military police to safe zones in Syria.

The US-led coalition fighting ISIS has told its local Syrian allies that they must be exclusively focused on fighting ISIS and not the Syrian regime. The directive prompted one rebel group, the Shohada Al Quartyan, to depart a joint coalition base in Southern Syria.

The Syriac Military Council, a Christian militia allied with the Syrian Kurdish forces, have discovered an ISIS drone factory in Raqqa.

It was reported that video evidence suggests that the Taliban have received improved weaponry in Afghanistan that appears to have been supplied by the Russian government. The Afghan National Army sustained more than 50 percent casualties in the Taliban attack on the military base in Khakrez.

A new al-Qaeda-linked Jihadi Group has formed in Kashmir called "Ansar Ghazwat-Ul-Hind."

On the international security front, the UK Ministry of Defence, the Treasury, and other key departments, have launched a government review of national security capabilities, which is expected to report at year end.

Sweden’s left of center minority government faced a crisis on Wednesday after a coalition partner said it would support four opposition parties in a no-confidence vote over the largest security breaches in the country’s history.

Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying a deal with the Syrian government allowing Russia to keep its Hmeimim air base in Lattakia Province for 50 years with an option for a further 25 years.

The patrol craft USS Thunderbolt fired on an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy vessel in the Northern Persian Gulf at 3 p.m. local time on Tuesday after the Iranian ship sped toward the Thunderbolt and got as close as 150 yards.

Iranian media have reported that Iran has successfully launched a rocket carrying a satellite into space.

The US House of Representatives has passed one of the most expansive sanctions packages in history on Iran, Russia, and North Korea.

CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, has warned that over the long-term China rather than Russia or Iran is the biggest threat to American national security and dominance.

The UK has announced plans to send a warship to the disputed South China Sea next year to conduct freedom of navigation exercise.

China has been bolstering defenses along its border with North Korea in preparation for a potential crisis including a US military strike. Measures reportedly include establishing a new border defense brigade, 24-hour video surveillance of the frontier by unmanned aerial vehicles, and setting up nuclear capable bomb shelters and bunkers in the surrounding regions.

North Korea vowed Tuesday to strike the US with a “powerful nuclear hammer” after the CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, hinted last week that Washington was open to the possibility of regime change. General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said over the weekend that war with North Korea was not “unimaginable” and that the Trump administration is giving diplomacy only “a few more months.”

US officials have said that they believe North Korea may test fire another missile on or about the 64th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. South Korean intelligence and military officials have reportedly said that, “movements by transporter erector launchers carrying Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch tubes have been continuously observed in North Pyongan (province).”