Russia and US Deploy Nuclear Capable Strategic Bombers in Classic Military Diplomacy As North Korea
Russia and US Deploy Nuclear Capable Strategic Bombers in Classic Military Diplomacy As North Korea Test-Fires SRBMs
On the terrorism front, Dutch police have made two arrests of suspected Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists after a performance by a Los Angeles-based rock band was canceled Wednesday night because of a threat to a Rotterdam, Netherlands, concert venue. Dutch security forces detained a Spaniard who was driving a van containing gas canisters just a few hundred yards from the venue.
Belgian police gunned down a machete wielding man in Brussels believed to be an ISIS-inspired lone wolf.
ISIS has reportedly released a new film which threatens Pope Francis with the warning that “We will be in Rome."
As well, an ISIS terror cell opted to blow themselves up rather than surrender to Russian police in the village of Psedach in the Republic of Ingushetia.
ISIS has claimed it beheaded at least 11 people at a checkpoint manned by forces of the Libyan military in the Al-Jufra region around 500 kilometers from Tripoli.
As ISIS is faced with battlefield defeat in Syria and Iraq, the US and Iran are continuing to vie for influence in the region. In a recent battle to control the Iraqi-Syrian border, the Iranian-backed Sayyid al-Shuhada Brigades, an armed faction of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) came under attack on August 7th with the group accusing US forces of attacking their positions in western Iraq and vowing revenge.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb and gun attack on a Shia Mosque in Kabul that has killed 14 people.
In classic Cold War-era strategic diplomacy, two US B-1 nuclear-capable, strategic bombers and one B-52 Stratofortress arrived in the UK on Wednesday for an annual international war game that takes place at the same time as Russia’s huge 100,000-man “Zapad” or “West” military exercise that is meant to intimidate the Baltic States, Poland, and Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian nuclear-capable, strategic Tupolev-95MS Bear bombers have, in a rare move, flown out over the Pacific Ocean, the Sea of Japan, the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, prompting Japan and South Korea to scramble fighter aircraft to escort them.
China has criticized India's attempt to construct a stand-alone road near their disputed Sino-Indian border around Marsimik La that would give Indian security forces access to remote areas in the disputed western part of Sino-Indian boundary area.
On Wednesday, North Korea’s state media released photos that appear to show the designs of one, or possibly two, new solid-fuel ballistic missiles. One of the photos clearly showed a diagram for a missile called “Pukguksong-3,” which appears to be the latest in its Pukguksong series. The other was harder to see in the photos, but was designated as a “Hwasong.” Today, the North test-fired what are believed to be three Short Range Ballistic Missiles (SRBMs), one that exploded after launch, and two of which impacted in the Sea of Japan. It was also revealed that Pyongyang was building a new nuclear reactor.
