Free Republic

China’s Communist Party adopted a secret plan in September to bolster the North Korean government with increased aid and military support, including new missiles, if Pyongyang halts further nuclear tests, according to an internal party document. The document, labeled “top secret” and dated Sept. 15 — just 12 days after North Korea’s latest underground nuclear blast — outlines China’s plan for dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue. It states China will allow North Korea to keep its current arsenal of nuclear weapons, contrary to Beijing’s public stance that it seeks a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. Chinese leaders also agreed to...

Early Friday morning, President Trump tweeted, “Iran is playing with fire — they don’t appreciate how ‘kind’ President Obama was to them. Not me!” Earlier in the week, both the president and National Security Advisor Mike Flynn said they were putting Iran “on notice,” without defining what that notice meant. Mr. Trump likes to keep our adversaries guessing, and that’s a good thing, if he actually does it. More definitively, a statement by Flynn said, “The days of turning a blind eye to Iran’s hostile and belligerent actions toward the United States and the world community are over.” For the...

Syrian state media on Monday said Israel had fired missiles at a Syrian military facility in the Damascus countryside, adding that Syrian air defense systems had intercepted three of the missiles. “Our air defenses are confronting an Israeli missile attack on one of our sites in the Damascus suburbs and three of the targets were downed,” state news agency SANA said, adding the attacks happened at 11:30 p.m. Monday. A witness told Reuters late on Monday three strong explosions were heard from the direction of Jamraya, west of Damascus. Another witness said thick smoke could be seen rising over the...

The deputy head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, warned Europe on Saturday that if it threatens Tehran, the Guards will increase the range of missiles to above 2000 kilometers. “If we have kept the range of our missiles to 2000 kilometers, it’s not due to lack of technology. ... We are following a strategic doctrine,” Salami said, according to the Reuters news agency, which cited a report in Iranian media. “So far we have felt that Europe is not a threat, so we did not increase the range of our missiles. But if Europe wants to turn...

Iran’s nuclear deal is “not negotiable”, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bassam Ghassemi said Saturday in response to remarks by French president Emmanuel Macron. Macron called for vigilance towards Tehran over its ballistic missile program and regional activities in an interview published Wednesday by the Emirati daily Al-Ittihad. “We have told French leaders on several occasions that the Iran nuclear deal is not negotiable, and that no other issues can be included in the text” of the 2015 agreement, state news agency IRNA quoted Ghassemi as saying. France, the foreign ministry speaker said, is “fully aware of our country’s intangible position...

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said he did not rule out new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program. According to the Russian Sputnik news agency, Macron said Iran’s ballistic missile program was “very worrying” and said additional measures against the Islamic Republic should be included in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which should not be canceled. Meanwhile, in a separate interview with Time magazine published Thursday and quoted by AFP, Macron warned that U.S. pressure to renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal could push Tehran into deciding to build its own nuclear weapons. “If you want to stop...

On the eve of President Trump's decision on the certification of the Iran nuclear deal, CIA Director Michael Pompeo lashed out Thursday at the Islamic Republic in a speech at the University of Texas, calling it "a thuggish police state" and a "despotic theocracy," and comparing its ambitions to those of ISIS.

Iraqi army and popular forces have discovered a number of US-made missiles from a military position of Daesh (ISIL) in the Southern part of Mosul, informed local sources disclosed after the first group of pro-government troops opened their way into Southern Mosul on Monday. “Several US-made missiles were found in al-Shoura region to the South of Mosul,” a local source said on Monday, Global Research reported. The Iraqi army and popular forces had previously found US-made missiles in Anbar province. Provincial officials confirmed that the US-made weapons were sent by the so-called US-led coalition for the ISIL terrorists in Anbar...

When President Trump gave a fiery campaign speech in Huntsville, Ala., on Friday evening, he drew a rapturous roar by ridiculing Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, as “Little Rocket Man.” Among diplomats and national security specialists, the reaction was decidedly different. After Mr. Trump repeated his taunt in a tweet late Saturday and threatened that Mr. Kim and his foreign minister “won’t be around much longer” if they continue their invective against the United States, reactions ranged from nervous disbelief to sheer terror. Mr. Trump’s willingness to casually threaten to annihilate a nuclear-armed foe was yet another reminder of...

North Korea said on Saturday that firing its rockets at the U.S. mainland was "inevitable" after U.S. President Donald Trump called Pyongyang's leader "rocket man," in a further escalation of rhetoric between the two leaders. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho's remarks before the United Nations General Assembly came hours after U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers escorted by fighter jets flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea, in a show of force the Pentagon said demonstrated the range of military options available to Trump. "Through such a prolonged and arduous struggle, now we are finally...

Last month I proposed what was clearly a provocative idea as the United States wrestles with the problem of North Korea and their diminutive dictator’s growing collection of nuclear toys. What if, I wondered, we were to use our missile defense system to shoot down one of Kim Jong-un’s ICBM’s the next time he fires a test shot over Japan? Others have suggested it in the past but it always seems to be dismissed as a needlessly risky idea. It would certainly be seen as a provocation in the face of a madman by some, but it seems as...

A nuclear weapons command exercise by NATO in November 1983 prompted fear in the leadership of the Soviet Union that the maneuvers were a cover for a nuclear surprise attack by the United States, triggering a series of unparalleled Soviet military re­sponses, according to a top-secret U.S. intelligence review that has just been declassified. “In 1983, we may have inadvertently placed our relations with the Soviet Union on a hair trigger,” the review concluded.

On Friday, North Korea launched yet another ICBM on a test run taking it over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. This one traveled more than 2,300 miles, further than the distance to Guam had they wanted to strike it. There’s increasing consensus that Kim’s missiles could reach the continental United States if he chose to take the shot.Over the course of the debate as to what we should about this, a great deal of attention has been paid to a couple of things. One is the miniaturization of Kim’s increasingly powerful nukes and whether or not he can...

South Korea has reportedly fired a ballistic missile towards North Korea in response to the hermit state's earlier strike. North Korea fired a missile in an eastern direction, over the island of Hokkaido, from its capital Pyongyang. South Korea has responded by firing a ballistic missile into waters off its eastern coast, it has been reported. The North Korean missile was fired early on Friday from the Sunan district in its capital, Pyongyang, toward the eastern direction, which is heading towards Japan, South Korea's military said. Japan has issued a national warning and told people to take shelter. _______________________ Conservazilla...

South Korea has pledged to develop a powerful “Frankenmissile” capable of destroying North Korea’s underground military facilities and wartime commands as it beefs up its armoury to counter the growing threat from across the border. According to the Korea Herald, military sources in Seoul revealed the plan the day after South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his US counterpart Donald Trump agreed to scrap an imposed 500kg limit on the warheads fitting onto the South’s missiles. Mr Moon had told the US president during a telephone call on Monday, after Pyongyang’s detonation of a hydrogen bomb test, that it was...

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump agreed on Monday to scrap a warhead weight limit on South Korea’s missiles in the wake of North Korea’s sixth nuclear test, South Korea’s presidential office said. In a separate phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin also on Monday, Moon said the U.N. Security Council should seek ways to sever North Korea’s foreign currency income, including from its workers employed abroad and oil shipments. Under the existing missile pact between the United States and South Korea, Seoul’s warheads currently face a cap of 500 kg...

North Korea’s substantial nuclear arsenal and improving intercontinental ballistic missile capacity pose a growing threat to America’s security. But we need not face an immediate crisis if we play our hand carefully. Given the bluster emanating from Pyongyang and Bedminster, N.J., Americans can be forgiven for feeling anxious. Shortly after adoption of new United Nations sanctions last weekend, North Korea threatened retaliation against the United States “thousands of times” over. Those sanctions were especially potent, closing loopholes and cutting off important funding for the North. August is also when the United States and South Korea conduct major joint military exercises,...

North Korea has been steadily assembling all the technologies it needs to put a nuclear warhead on a submarine-launched missile. If the Pyongyang regime deploys an effective undersea nuke—and all signs point toward that eventuality—it might be able to sail a sub behind U.S. defenses on the Korean Peninsula and launch a surprise strike on South Korean cities. The new undersea threat comes at a time of escalating hostility between the United States and North Korea. The communist country recently produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead small enough to fit inside its missiles, according to The Washington Post. Warhead-miniaturization is “a...

MANILA, Aug 7 (Reuters) - North Korea is ready to give the United States a "severe lesson" with its strategic nuclear force if it takes military action against it, and will not put its nuclear programme or its missiles on the negotiating table, it said in a statement to a regional meeting on Monday. In a transcript of a statement by Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, which was distributed to media in Manila, Pyongyang called new U.N. sanctions "fabricated" and warned there would be "strong follow-up measures" and acts of justice.It said the resolution showed the United Nations had abused its...

The placement of Iskander-M Brigades in Russia’s Eastern Military District reflects continued uneasiness about China.In early June 2017, Russian media reported that yet another Ground Forces missile brigade received the dreaded road-mobile 9K720 Iskander-M missile system (known in Russian military parlance as an “operational-tactical missile system,” or OTRK in short). The brigade in question is the 29th Army’s newly established 3rd Missile Brigade, based in Russia’s colossal Eastern Military District (MD). Formed in December 2016, this brigade was initially armed with the aging 9K79-1 Tochka-U tactical ballistic missile system, and became the Eastern MD’s fourth missile brigade to be re-equipped...