| U.S. releases video it says shows Iranian rockets near American warships Posted: 09 Jan 2016 04:38 PM PST  By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy released black-and-white video on Saturday it said was taken by an American helicopter showing an Iranian Revolutionary Guards vessel firing unguided rockets on Dec. 26 near warships including the aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran on Dec. 31 denied that its Revolutionary Guards vessels had launched the rockets as the United States claimed, with a Revolutionary Guards spokesman saying the "false" accusation was "akin to psychological warfare." The U.S. Navy said the infrared radar footage showed an Iranian "fast inshore attack craft" launching several rockets on Dec. 26 "in close proximity" to the Truman, the guided missile destroyer USS Bulkeley, the French naval frigate FS Provence and commercial ships in the busy waterway.
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| Top Asian News 12:36 a.m. GMT Posted: 09 Jan 2016 04:36 PM PST SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea's leader has taken a victory tour of military headquarters to celebrate the country's widely disputed claim of a hydrogen bomb test. Kim Jong Un called the nuclear test "a self-defensive step for reliably defending the peace on the Korean Peninsula and the regional security from the danger of nuclear war caused by the U.S.-led imperialists," according to a dispatch Sunday from state-run Korean Central News Agency. "It is the legitimate right of a sovereign state and a fair action that nobody can criticize," Kim was reported as saying during his tour of the People's Armed Forces Ministry. |
| US Navy releases video of 'provocative' Iran rocket fire Posted: 09 Jan 2016 01:52 PM PST DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. Navy on Saturday released footage it said showed Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels firing rockets near warships and commercial traffic in the strategic Strait of Hormuz late last month, a move raising tensions between the two nations despite the recent nuclear deal. |
| N. Korea defiance challenges moral authority of nuclear club Posted: 09 Jan 2016 11:33 AM PST  PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — When North Korea claimed triumphantly that it had tested its first hydrogen bomb, it was roundly and predictably condemned by the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and India, countries estimated to possess a combined total of more than 15,000 nuclear warheads.
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| Turkish forces kill 18 Kurdish rebels: army Posted: 09 Jan 2016 08:50 AM PST  Turkish security forces killed 18 militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as they battled the rebels in curfew-hit towns in the country's troubled southeast, the army said Saturday. Sixteen were killed in the Cizre district of Sirnak province near the Iraqi border on Friday, while another two died in the Sur district of Diyarbakir, the army said in a statement. Also in Sur, one soldier was wounded in a gun attack on Saturday while three other soldiers and a civil servant were also wounded when a remote-controlled bomb laid by militants was detonated, security sources said.
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| Iraqi refugee's brother shocked by terrorism arrest Posted: 09 Jan 2016 08:30 AM PST  HOUSTON (AP) — The brother of an Iraqi refugee who had settled in Texas said he is in shock after learning that his sibling — who had come to the U.S. to escape the violence in their homeland — is now facing charges that he tried to help the Islamic State group.
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| Refugee program decried after Iraqis' terror-related arrests Posted: 09 Jan 2016 06:58 AM PST  LOS ANGELES (AP) — The U.S. refugee program came under fresh criticism after federal authorities revealed that two Iraqi-born men arrested on terrorism-related charges had come to America as refugees.
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| Few Russian strikes in Syria are against Islamic State, U.S. official says Posted: 09 Jan 2016 04:35 AM PST  By Robin Emmott BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Only a third of Russia's air strikes in Syria are targeting Islamic State and its imprecise attacks are forcing the population to flee, fuelling Europe's refugee crisis, a senior U.S. official said on Saturday. Of the 5,000 air strikes carried out by Russia since it began its air offensive in Syria on Sept. 30, about 70 percent hit rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, rather than supporting the efforts of the U.S-led coalition, the official told reporters in Brussels. Rescue workers and rights groups say Russia's bombing in Syria has killed scores of civilians at busy market places and in residential areas.
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| Top General Warns of New ISIS Threat on US Southern Border Posted: 09 Jan 2016 03:30 AM PST  America is vulnerable to attack by Islamic extremists from a southern flank, and it's not the U.S./Mexico border, a top general says. The number of ISIS devotees living in or coming from the Caribbean is on the rise, according to U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. John Kelly, who oversees security throughout South America. "It seems like the Islamic extremists and terrorists have shifted a lot of their message, and that is, 'Hey, rather than come to Syria, why don't you stay at home and do San Bernardino, or do Boston, or do Fort Hood?'" Kelly said Friday at a Pentagon press briefing.
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| Iran complains to U.N. about Saudi 'provocations' Posted: 09 Jan 2016 02:01 AM PST  Iran's foreign minister has complained to the United Nations about Saudi Arabia's "provocations" toward Tehran, as a diplomatic crisis between the region's two major powers entered its second week. In a letter to the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon published by Iranian news agencies on Saturday, Mohammad Javad Zarif said "some people" in Riyadh seemed bent on dragging the whole region into crisis. The two powers, both major oil exporters, have been locked in a diplomatic battle since Saudi Arabia executed Shi'ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr on Jan. 2.
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| Iraqi air force conducting 60 percent of sorties, PM Abadi says Posted: 09 Jan 2016 01:25 AM PST  More than 60 percent of sorties against Islamic State in Iraq are carried out by the nation's air forces and about 40 percent by the U.S.-led coalition, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Saturday. Iraq's army last month scored its first success against Islamic State when it recaptured, with air support from the coalition, the city center of Ramadi. Speaking at a ceremony in Baghdad broadcast live on state TV, Abadi said Iraq still needed foreign assistance for air cover, training and armament, but not for ground operations.
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| Debate over women in combat continues to roil Marine Corps Posted: 08 Jan 2016 11:59 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Marine general predicts that the Defense Department's vows to maintain the same standards for women and men in combat jobs won't last, saying the military will eventually be pressured to lower the qualifications so more women can serve in jobs like the Marine infantry.
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| As Iraq fights Islamic State, violence rises in Shiite south Posted: 08 Jan 2016 11:57 PM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — As the sun sets over Iraq's southern city of Basra, Ahmed Hilal rushes to lock his door. At night, every knock sends his heart beating faster. In the morning, the father of three or someone he trusts walks his children to school, barely five minutes away.
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| N. Korea cites Kadhafi's 'destruction' in nuke test defence Posted: 08 Jan 2016 10:12 PM PST  North Korea has defended its latest nuclear test, citing the fate of two toppled Middle East leaders, while flexing its military muscle by showing TV footage of a submarine-launched missile test. A commentary published by the official KCNA news agency late Friday said the fate of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Moamer Kadhafi in Libya showed what happened when countries forsake their nuclear weapon ambitions. It also warned South Korea, which resumed high-decibel propaganda broadcasts across the inter-Korean border in response to Wednesday's test, that its actions were driving the divided peninsula to "the brink of war".
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| Top Asian News 4:38 a.m. GMT Posted: 08 Jan 2016 08:38 PM PST SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea warned of war as South Korea on Saturday continued blasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda across the rivals' tense border in retaliation for the North's purported fourth nuclear test. North Korean propaganda is filled with threats of violence, but the country is also extremely sensitive to criticism of its authoritarian leadership, which Seoul resumed in its cross-border broadcasts on Friday for the first time in nearly five months. Pyongyang says the broadcasts are tantamount to an act of war. When South Korea briefly resumed propaganda broadcasts in August after an 11-year break, Seoul says the two Koreas exchanged artillery fire. |
| Security experts fear 'European 9/11' in the coming year Posted: 08 Jan 2016 08:17 PM PST  Just a week into the year, France has already been rattled by an attempted attack on a police station, but counter-terrorism officials have far graver fears for Europe in 2016. November's attacks in Paris, in which 130 people were killed by Islamic State group jihadists, showed the trauma that could be caused by a group of men with Kalashnikov rifles, but experts fear it could be just the start. "Unfortunately, I think 2015 was nothing," a counter-terrorism official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
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| Consumer Electronics Show awash with altered realities Posted: 08 Jan 2016 01:27 PM PST  Altered realities abounded at the Consumer Electronics Show gadget-fest, touching everything from sex and sports to sales and space exploration. Virtual reality (VR) headsets immersed people in fictional worlds, while augmented reality (AR) eyewear overlaid digital data on the scenes around them. "Virtual reality takes you to another place, while augmented reality brings another place to you," said Ari Grobman of Lumus, an Israeli company that specializes in optics technology for augmented reality.
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