Tag Archives: Weapons

Gunman kills 26 in rural Texas church during Sunday service

By Lisa Maria Garza

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) – A man with an assault rifle killed at least 26 people and wounded 20 in a rural Texas church during Sunday services, adding the name of Sutherland Springs to the litany of American communities shattered by mass shootings.

The massacre, which media reports say was carried out by a man thrown out of the Air Force for assaulting his wife and child, is likely to renew questions about why someone with a history of violence could amass an arsenal of lethal weaponry.

The lone gunman, dressed in black tactical gear and a ballistic vest, drove up to the white-steepled First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs and started firing inside. He kept shooting once he entered, killing or wounding victims ranging in age from five to 72 years, police told a news conference.

The area around a site of a mass shooting is taped out in Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017, in this picture obtained via social media.

The area around a site of a mass shooting is taped out in Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017, in this picture obtained via social media. MAX MASSEY/ KSAT 12/via REUTERS

President Donald Trump told reporters the shooting was due to a “mental health problem” and wasn’t “a guns situation.” He was speaking during an official visit to Japan.

Among the dead was the 14-year-old daughter of church Pastor Frank Pomeroy, the family told several television stations. One couple, Joe and Claryce Holcombe, told the Washington Post they lost eight extended family members, including their pregnant granddaughter-in-law and three of her children.

The gunman was later found dead, apparently of a gunshot wound, after he fled the scene.

“We are dealing with the largest mass shooting in our state’s history,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott told a news conference. “The tragedy of course is worsened by the fact that it occurred in a church, a place of worship.”

About 40 miles (65 km) east of San Antonio in Wilson County, Sutherland Springs has fewer than 400 residents.

“This would never be expected in a little county like (this),” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told CNN.

A local resident with a rifle fired at the suspect as he left the church. The gunman dropped his Ruger assault weapon and fled in his vehicle, said Freeman Martin, regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

A man told San Antonio television station KSAT he was driving near the church when the resident who had opened fire on the gunman approached his truck and urged him to give chase.

“He said that we had to get him (the gunman), and so that’s what I did,” Johnnie Langendorff, the driver of the truck, told KSAT. He added they reached speeds of 95 miles (153 km/h) per hour during the chase, while he was on the phone with emergency dispatchers.

Soon afterward, the suspect crashed the vehicle near the border of a neighboring county and was found dead inside with a cache of weapons. It was not immediately clear if he killed himself or was hit when the resident fired at him outside the church, authorities said.

The suspect’s identity was not disclosed by authorities, but law enforcement officials who asked not to be named said he was Devin Patrick Kelley, described as a white, 26-year-old man, the New York Times and other media reported.

“We don’t think he had any connection to this church,” Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt told CNN. “We have no motive.”

Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett gives an update during a news conference at the Stockdale Community Center following a shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs that left many dead and injured in Stockdale, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017.

Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett gives an update during a news conference at the Stockdale Community Center following a shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs that left many dead and injured in Stockdale, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017. REUTERS/Sergio Flores

‘I HIT THE DECK’

The massacre came weeks after a sniper killed 58 people in Las Vegas. It was the deadliest attack in modern U.S. history and rekindled a years-long national debate over whether easy access to firearms was contributing to the trend of mass shootings.

In rural areas like Sutherland Springs, gun ownership is a part of life and the state’s Republican leaders for years have balked at campaigns for gun control, arguing that more firearms among responsible owners make the state safer.

Jeff Forrest, a 36-year-old military veteran who lives a block away from the church, said what sounded like high-caliber, semi-automatic gunfire triggered memories of his four combat deployments with the Marine Corps.

“I was on the porch, I heard 10 rounds go off and then my ears just started ringing,” Forrest said. “I hit the deck and I just lay there.”

To honor the victims, Trump ordered flags on all federal buildings to be flown at half staff.

In Japan during the first leg of a 12-day Asian trip, the president said preliminary reports indicated the shooter was “deranged.”

“This isn’t a guns situation, I mean we could go into it, but it’s a little bit soon to go into it,” Trump said. “But fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction, otherwise … it would have been much worse. But this is a mental health problem at the highest level.”

The First Baptist Church is one of two houses of worship in Sutherland Springs, which also has two gas stations and a Dollar General store.

The white-painted, one-story church features a small steeple and a single front door. On Sunday, the Lone Star flag of Texas was flying alongside the U.S. flag and a third, unidentified banner.

Inside, there is a small raised platform on which members sang worship songs to guitar music and the pastor delivered a weekly sermon, according to videos posted on YouTube. In one of the clips, a few dozen people, including young children, can be seen sitting in the wooden pews.

It was not clear how many worshipers were inside when Sunday’s shooting occurred.

 

SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

Online records show a man named Devin Patrick Kelley lived in New Braunfels, Texas, about 35 miles (56 km) north of Sutherland Springs.

The U.S. Air Force said Kelley served in its Logistics Readiness unit at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge in 2014.

Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 on charges of assaulting his wife and child, and given a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 12 months and a reduction in rank, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.

Kelley’s Facebook page has been deleted, but cached photos show a profile picture where he appeared with two small children. He also posted a photo of what appeared to be an assault rifle, writing a post that read: “She’s a bad bitch.”

Sunday’s shooting occurred on the eighth anniversary of the Nov. 5, 2009, massacre of 13 people at the Fort Hood Army base in central Texas. A U.S. Army Medical Corps psychiatrist convicted of the killings is awaiting execution.

In 2015, a white gunman killed nine black parishioners at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The gunman was sentenced to death for the racially motivated attack.

In September, a gunman killed a woman in the parking lot of a Tennessee church and wounded six worshipers inside.

 

(Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Phil Stewart in Washington, and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; writing by Frank McGurty; editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

U.S., South Korea begin computer-simulated drills which North says are aimed at nuclear war

A U.S. Air Force U-2 Dragon Lady takes part in a drill at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, August 21, 2017.

By Christine Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean and U.S. forces began computer-simulated military exercises on Monday amid tension over North Korea’s weapons programs, while a report it has earned millions of dollars in exports is likely to raise doubt about the impact of sanctions.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the joint drills, called Ulchi Freedom Guardian, were purely defensive and did not aim to increase tension on the peninsula, but North Korea denounced the exercises as preparation for war.

“There is no intent at all to heighten military tension on the Korean peninsula as these drills are held annually and are of a defensive nature,” Moon told cabinet ministers.

“North Korea should not exaggerate our efforts to keep peace nor should they engage in provocations that would worsen the situation, using (the exercise) as an excuse,” he said.

The joint U.S.-South Korean drills last until Aug. 31 and involve computer simulations designed to prepare for war with a nuclear-capable North Korea.

The United States also describes them as “defensive in nature”, a term North Korean state media has dismissed as a “deceptive mask”.

“It’s to prepare if something big were to occur and we needed to protect ROK,” said Michelle Thomas, a U.S. military spokeswoman, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.

North Korea views such exercises as preparations for invasion and has fired missiles and taken other actions to show its anger over military drills in the past.

“This is aimed to ignite a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula at any cost,” the North’s KCNA news agency said.

“The situation on the Korean peninsula has plunged into a critical phase due to the reckless north-targeted war racket of the war maniacs.”

North and South Korea are technically still at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.

North Korea’s rapid progress in developing nuclear weapons and missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland has fueled a surge in regional tension and U.N.-led sanctions appear to have failed to bite deeply enough to change its behavior.

China, North Korea’s main ally and trading partner, has urged the United States and South Korea to scrap the exercises. Russia has also asked for the drills to stop but the United States has not backed down.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said North and South Korea and the United States all needed to make more effort to ease tension.

“We think that South Korea and the United States holding joint drills is not beneficial to easing current tensions or efforts by all sides to promote talks,” she told a daily news briefing.

 

SANCTIONS UNDERMINED

Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported that a confidential U.N. report found North Korea evaded U.N. sanctions by “deliberately using indirect channels” and had generated $270 million in banned exports since February.

The “lax enforcement” of existing sanctions and Pyongyang’s “evolving evasion techniques” were undermining the U.N. goal of getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Kyodo quoted the report as saying.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Aug. 5 that could slash its $3 billion annual export revenue by a third. The latest sanctions were imposed after North Korea tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July.

U.S. President Donald Trump warned North Korea this month it would face “fire and fury” if it threatens the United States.

The North responded by threatening to fire missiles towards the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam, but later said it was holding off while it waited to see what the United States would do next.

There will be no field training during the current exercise, according to U.S. Forces Korea.

The United States has about 28,000 troops in South Korea. About 17,500 U.S. service members are participating in the exercise this month, down from 25,000 last year, according to the Pentagon.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Sunday the reduction in the number of U.S. troops taking part reflected a need for fewer personnel and was not because of tension with North Korea.

Other South Korean allies are also joining this year, with troops from Australia, Britain, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand taking part.

 

(Writing by Linda Sieg; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

 

Roadblocks, weapons bans as Boston braces for ‘Free Speech’ rally

Roadblocks, weapons bans as Boston braces for 'Free Speech' rally

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) – Boston officials are planning road blockades and even banning food vendors from the historic Boston Common as they step up security around a “Free Speech” rally on Saturday featuring right-wing speakers, aiming to avoid a repeat of last weekend’s violence at a white supremacist rally in Virginia.

Some 500 police officers will be on the streets around the popular tourist destination. They are planning to close some roadways to vehicles, mindful of the car attacks that killed a woman in Charlottesville and 13 in an attack in Barcelona on Thursday.

“We all know the tragedy that happened in Barcelona. That only makes us more vigilant,” said Boston Police Commissioner William Evans, who was the department’s second-in-command during the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Saturday’s rally has drawn intense concern from city and state officials following the violence in Charlottesville, when white supremacists at a “Unite the Right” rally fought in the streets with anti-racism protesters. A woman was killed at that event when a man said to have neo-Nazi sympathies crashed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, injuring another 19 people.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s response to that event, including his statement on Tuesday that there were “very fine people” on both sides of last weekend’s conflict, has drawn wide-spread condemnation from both Democrats and Trump’s own Republican party.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said the city had granted a permit for Saturday’s event but would not tolerate violence. Sticks, bats and weapons of all kinds would be banned, he said.

“We are going to respect their right to free speech. In return they have to respect the safety of our city,” Walsh said. “If anything gets out of hand, we are going to shut it down.”

The rally could be dwarfed by a “Fight White Supremacy” march starting in the city’s historically black Roxbury neighborhood an ending at the Common, which organizers expect to draw thousands.

“Our job is to make sure that as the peace rally enters into Boston Common that the folks that come in there feel safe, that we don’t have an incident that happened like last week in Virginia,” Walsh said.

A few hundred people are expected to attend the “Free Speech” rally on Boston Common, the nation’s oldest public park. Speakers include Kyle Chapman, a California activist who was arrested at a Berkeley rally earlier this year that turned violent and Joe Biggs, formerly of the right-wing conspiracy site Infowars.

Organizers of the rally on Facebook denounced the violence and white supremacist chants of the Charlottesville event.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Colombia’s FARC rebels turned in more than 8,000 weapons: U.N.

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos greets a driver carrying the last container with surrendered weapons delivered by FARC rebels to a UN observer in La Guajira, Colombia August 15, 2017. Colombian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s Marxist FARC rebel group handed in more than 8,000 weapons and nearly 1.3 million pieces of ammunition as it demobilized after a peace deal with the government, the United Nations said.

The disarmament process officially concluded on Tuesday as the UN, which was supervising the hand-in, removed the final shipment of weapons from a demobilization camp in Fonseca, La Guajira province, one of more than two dozen zones where the FARC have been living since the start of the year.

“Our mission has, up to today, gathered 8,112 arms in these containers and destroyed almost 1.3 million cartridges,” UN mission chief for Colombia Jean Arnault said at an event to mark the shipment.

That is more weapons than the 7,132 the UN had originally reported in June.

The weapons will be used to make three monuments celebrating the peace accord, agreed last year between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government of President Juan Manuel Santos.

Roughly 7,000 FARC fighters have demobilized under the accord, which allows the group 10 unelected seats in Congress through 2026 and grants amnesty to the majority of ex-fighters. Rebels convicted by special courts of human rights violations will avoid traditional prison sentences, instead performing reparations work such as removing landmines.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by James Dalgleish)

U.S. likely to target more Chinese entities over North Korea ‘fairly soon’: official

FILE PHOTO: North Korean soldiers chat as they stand guard behind national flags of China (front) and North Korea on a boat anchored along the banks of Yalu River, near the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, June 10, 2013. REUTERS/Jacky Chen

By David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New U.S. sanctions aimed at curbing North Korean’s weapons programs, including measures aimed at Chinese financial institutions, can be expected “fairly soon,” a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.

Asked when such sanctions could be expected and whether they could come within 30 days, Susan Thornton, the acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia, told a Senate sub-committee hearing:

“We have been working on coming up with a new list of entities that we think are violating … I think you’ll see something fairly soon, yes.”

Thornton said the United States would prefer to cooperate with China in going after entities doing business with North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions.

“But we are perfectly prepared to act on our own,” she said.

“I think the Chinese are now very clear that we’re going to go after Chinese entities if need be, if we find them to be in violation, and if the Chinese feel they can’t cooperate in going after those targets.”

Thornton also said Washington was still considering whether to add North Korea back to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, from which it was removed in 2008 in exchange for progress in denuclearization talks.

“We are reviewing that issue right now … We are looking at the issue of designation,” she said, adding that she could not give a time frame for a decision.

Thornton said the United States had offered customs assistance to China to help stem illicit trade over its border with North Korea. “We are working on that with them, as are some of our like-minded allies in the region,” she said.

She said sanctions had affected North Korea’s ability to get materials for its weapons programs, but had not slowed its missile testing, as a lot of the production for this program was now indigenous.

“We are continuing to talk to China about that,” she said. “We’re continuing to try to impinge on sources of, particularly, hard currency, financing, but … it’s become harder and harder to stop this kind of activity in North Korea.”

U.S. officials said on Tuesday they had seen increased activity at a site in the western city of Kusong that could be preparations for another missile test within days.

U.S. officials told Reuters this month the Trump administration could impose new sanctions on small Chinese banks and other firms doing business with Pyongyang within weeks.

China’s Ambassador to Washington Cui Tiankai said on Tuesday secondary sanctions on Chinese firms were “unacceptable” and had “severely impaired” cooperation on North Korea.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Trump pledges to act on North Korean threat

U.S. President Donald Trump gives a public speech in front of the Warsaw Uprising Monument at Krasinski Square in Warsaw, Poland July 6, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton

WARSAW (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Thursday to confront North Korea “very strongly” following its latest missile test and urged nations to show Pyongyang that there would be consequences for its weapons program.

North Korea on Tuesday test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that some experts believe has the range to reach the U.S. states of Alaska and Hawaii and perhaps the U.S. Pacific Northwest. North Korea said it could carry a large nuclear warhead.

Speaking at a news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Trump said Korea was “a threat, and we will confront it very strongly”.

He said the United States was considering “severe things” for North Korea, but that he would not draw a “red line” of the kind that his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, had drawn but not enforced on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Trump added: “… they are behaving in a very, very dangerous manner and something will have to be done.”

The issue presents Trump, who took office in January, with perhaps his biggest foreign policy challenge. It has put pressure on his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom Trump had pressed without success to rein in Pyongyang.

The United States said on Wednesday that it was ready to use force if necessary to stop North Korea’s nuclear missile program. But China on Thursday called for restraint and made clear it did not want to be targeted by U.S. sanctions.

Meeting in Germany ahead of a G20 summit, Xi told South Korean President Moon Jae-in that “China upholds the denuclearization of the peninsula, maintaining its peace and stability, resolving the issue via dialogue and consultation, and that all sides strictly abide by relevant resolutions of the U.N. Security Council”, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

And Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said that, while China would implement relevant U.N. resolutions, “the U.S. should not use their domestic laws as excuses to levy sanctions against Chinese financial institutions”.

“BAD BEHAVIOR”

Trump flew on to Hamburg on Thursday to attend the summit, and was due to meet with Xi there.

His frustration that Beijing has not done more to clamp down on North Korea prompted him to tweet on Wednesday: “Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us – but we had to give it a try!”

Trump did not mention China specifically in his remarks in Poland, but his message that other countries needed to do more was clearly meant for Beijing.

“President Duda and I call on all nations to confront this global threat and publicly demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences for their very, very bad behavior,” he said.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday that the United States would propose new U.N. sanctions in coming days, and that if Russia and China did not support the move, then “we will go our own path”.

Some diplomats say Beijing has not been fully enforcing existing international sanctions on its neighbor and has resisted tougher measures, such as an oil embargo, bans on the North Korean airline and guest workers, and measures against Chinese banks and other firms doing business with the North.

U.S. officials have said the United States might specifically seek unilaterally to sanction more Chinese companies that do business with North Korea, especially banks – echoing a tactic it used to pressurize to Iran to curb its nuclear program.

South Korean presidential spokesman Park Su-hyun gave a somewhat different account of the Xi-Moon meeting. He told reporters that the two men had agreed North Korea’s missile test was “unforgivable”, and had discussed stepping up pressure and sanctions.

(This story has been refiled to make explicit that Trump was speaking in paragraph 5)

(additional reporting by Marcin Goettig; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Turkey warns on Syrian Kurdish militia, welcomes U.S. weapons pledge

FILE PHOTO: Turkey's Defence Minister Fikri Isik answers a question during an interview with Reuters in Ankara, Turkey, August 5, 2016. REUTERS/Tumay Berkin

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s defense minister warned on Friday that Ankara would retaliate against any threatening moves by the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria and welcomed a U.S. pledge to take back weapons from the group after the defeat of Islamic State.

Washington sees the YPG as an essential ally in the campaign to defeat Islamic State in its Raqqa stronghold. Ankara considers it a terrorist group tied to militants who have fought an insurgency in southeast Turkey since the mid-1980s.

Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik told broadcaster NTV a letter sent to him by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis regarding the weapons given to the YPG was a “positive step” but “implementation is essential”.

Turkey has said supplies to the YPG have in the past ended up in PKK hands, describing any weapon given to them as a threat to its security. Isik warned of retaliation for any action by the Syrian militia.

“Any move by the YPG toward Turkey will be answered immediately,” the minister said.

“Threats that might emerge after the Raqqa operation are already being evaluated. We will implement steps that will completely secure the border,” he added. “It is Turkey’s right to eliminate terror threats across its borders”.

The fight for Raqqa began two weeks ago, putting pressure on Islamic State, which also faces defeat in its Iraqi stronghold, Mosul.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday Turkey had sent reinforcements, including troops, vehicles and equipment into Syria, toward areas south of Azaz town, which is held by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels. The YPG controls areas south of Azaz.

A rebel from a Turkish-backed group has also said Turkey sent in more forces but there has been no confirmation from officials in Ankara.

Turkey opened an offensive in northern Syria in August last year, sending tanks and warplanes across the border to support Syrian rebels fighting both Islamic State and the YPG.

It helped them carve out a big portion of northern Syria, helping ensure the YPG and its allies could not link the 400-km (250-mile) stretch of territory they hold in the north and northeast with the pocket they hold west of Azaz.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Can Sezer; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans, Larry King)

Iran says it has built third underground ballistic missile factory

FILE PHOTO: An Iranian national flag flutters in Tehran April 15, 2011. REUTERS/STR/File Photo

By Parisa Hafezi

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran has built a third underground ballistic missile production factory and will keep developing its missile program, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted a senior commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard as saying.

The development is likely to fuel tensions with the United States in a week when President Donald Trump, on his first foreign trip, has called Iran a sponsor of militant groups and a threat to countries across the Middle East.

“Iran’s third underground factory has been built by the Guards in recent years … We will continue to further develop our missile capabilities forcefully,” Fars quoted Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Guard’s airspace division, as saying.

Since taking office in January, Trump has imposed new sanctions on Iran in response to its recent missile launches, putting Tehran “on notice”.

Iran has reacted defiantly. Newly re-elected pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday: “Iran does not need the permission of the United States to conduct missile tests”.

Iran’s Sunni Muslim Gulf neighbors and its arch-enemy Israel have expressed concerns over Tehran’s ballistic missile program, seeing it as a threat to regional security.

In 2015, Iranian state TV aired footage of underground tunnels with ready-to-fire missiles on the back of trucks, saying the facility was one of hundreds of underground missile bases around the country.

“It is natural that our enemies America and the Zionist regime (Israel) are angry with our missile program because they want Iran to be in a weak position,” Hajizadeh said.

Most nuclear-related sanctions on Iran were lifted last year after Tehran fulfilled commitments under a 2015 deal with major powers to scale back its nuclear program – an agreement that Trump has frequently criticized as being too soft on Tehran. But Iran remains subject to a U.N. arms embargo and other restrictions.

Two months after implementation of the deal, the Guards test-fired two ballistic missiles that it said were designed to be able to hit Israel.

Iran says its missile program is not in defiance with a U.N. resolution that calls on it to refrain from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons for up to eight years.

“Along with improving our defense capabilities, we will continue our missile tests and missile production. The next missile to be produced is a surface-to-surface missile,” said Hajizadeh, without elaborating.

In retaliation for the new U.S. sanctions over its ballistic missile program, Iran this month added nine American individuals and companies to its own list of 15 U.S. companies for alleged human rights violations and cooperation with Israel.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Defiant North Korea hints at nuclear tests to boost force ‘to the maximum’

People watch a TV broadcasting of a news report on North Korea's missile launch, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea.

By Soyoung Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea suggested on Monday it will continue its nuclear weapons tests, saying it will bolster its nuclear force “to the maximum” in a “consecutive and successive way at any moment” in the face of what it calls U.S. aggression and hysteria.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said a “major, major conflict” with North Korea is possible over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, while China said last week the situation on the Korean peninsula could escalate or slip out of control.

In a show of force, the United States has sent the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group to waters off the Korean peninsula to join drills with South Korea to counter a series of threats of destruction from North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

“Now that the U.S. is kicking up the overall racket for sanctions and pressure against the DPRK, pursuant to its new DPRK policy called ‘maximum pressure and engagement’, the DPRK will speed up at the maximum pace the measure for bolstering its nuclear deterrence,” a spokesman for North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency.

North Korea’s “measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership,” the spokesman said.

Reclusive North Korea has carried out five nuclear tests and a series of missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council and unilateral resolutions. It has been conducting such tests at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

It test-launched a missile on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful, but which nevertheless drew widespread international condemnation.

‘TOP PRIORITY’

South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter the North Korean threat, days after Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1 billion battery.

In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South’s presidential office said.

Trump, asked about his message to North Korea after the latest missile test, told reporters: “You’ll soon find out,” but did not elaborate on what the U.S. response would be.

Trump stepped up his outreach to allies in Asia over the weekend to discuss the North Korean threat and make sure all are “on the same page” if action is needed, a top White House official said.

“There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea,” White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABC’s “This Week.”

The THAAD deployment has drawn protests from China, which says the powerful radar that can penetrate its territory will undermine regional security, and from residents of the area in which it is being deployed, worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles.

The United States is seeking more help from China, the North’s major ally, to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development. Trump, in the Reuters interview, praised Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a “good man”.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder’s birth.

North Korea, technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea and has said before it will pursue its nuclear and missile programs to counter perceived U.S. aggression.

(Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Top U.S. general in Afghanistan sees Russia sending weapons to Taliban

U.S. Army General John Nicholson (L), commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan, and U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis (R) hold a news conference at Resolute Support headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan

By Idrees Ali

KABUL (Reuters) – The head of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan said on Monday he was “not refuting” reports that Russia was providing support, including weapons, to the Taliban.

General John Nicholson was speaking in Kabul during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

For some time, American officials have complained of what Nicholson once called “malign influence” by Russia in Afghanistan, but Monday’s comments are among the strongest suggestions yet that Moscow is providing arms to the Taliban.

Asked about reports that Russia was providing a range of help, including weapons, to the Taliban, who control large areas of Afghanistan, Nicholson replied: “Oh no, I am not refuting that.”

Moscow has been critical of the United States over its handling of the war in Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union fought a bloody and disastrous war of its own in the 1980s.

Russia has previously denied providing any material or financial aid to the insurgent group, but has said it maintains ties with Taliban officials in order to push for peace negotiations.

A senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that intelligence showed that Russia was providing monetary and weapons support to the Taliban, specifically weapons such as machine guns.

The supply of weapons has accelerated in the past 18 months, the official said.

Mattis, visiting Afghanistan for the first time as President Donald Trump’s defense secretary, said that “any weapons being funneled here from a foreign country would be a violation of international law.”

As recently as late last month, on a visit to London, Mattis had declined to say whether Russian aid had included weapons.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; editing by Ralph Boulton and Ian Geoghegan)