F-16

US "boots on the ground" on Iraq have just suffered their first casualty.

Moments ago US Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that the Islamic State killed the first U.S. serviceman in Iraq who was aiding Kurdish fighters near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, RT reports. A statement from the US-led forces in Iraq added the fatality was "a result of enemy fire." "It is a combat death, of course. And a very sad loss," Carter told reporters at a press conference in Germany.

Friday, a Russian SU-27 did a barrel roll over a U.S. RC-135 over the Baltic, the second time in two weeks. Also in April, the U.S. destroyer Donald Cook, off Russia’s Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, was twice buzzed by Russian planes.

Vladimir Putin’s message: Keep your spy planes and ships a respectable distance away from us. Apparently, we have not received it.

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The possibility that Trump would step on favored political toes and act pragmatically to rein in Imperial over-reach terrifies the bloated Imperial city of Washington D.C.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has accused Turkey of allowing known terrorists to cross their borders into the Middle east and Northern Africa to join extremist groups such as ISIS.  According to Lavrov Ankara rarely detains or hands over Russians who travel through Turkey to terrorist organisations. “Russia has emphasized time and time again its concern over the growing terrorist threats in Turkey and the lack of preparedness of the Turkish authorities to cooperate in the fight against terrorism.