War

North Korea has threatened nuclear strikes on the US and South Korea as the two begin their biggest ever military drills. Pyongyang issued a statement ordering a “pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice” unless the joint military drills off the Korean Peninsula, involving more than 300,000 South Korean and 15,000 American troops, are halted. The joint exercises, Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, due to start on Monday are an annual event that always generates tension. RT reports: The exercise involves conducting amphibious operations for possible wartime missions.

Local sources say the clashes in the Islamic State stronghold Raqqa have been escalating for several days and have resulted in numerous ISIS defections A popular uprising reportedly resulted in dozens of deaths as fierce clashes erupted between local residents and the terrorist group. Around 200 ISIS militants are said to have switched sides and are now fighting against their former comrades. RT reports: “About 200 Syrian militants of Daesh took the side of residents of Raqqa, which forced the terrorists to organize roadblocks at the entrance to the city,” one source told Sputnik.

The United States is constructing two air bases in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria. One base is nearing finished being set up and another dual purpose military-civilian base is under construction, according to a Kurdish website. Reuters UK reports: The Erbil-based news website BasNews, quoting a military source in the Kurdish-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), said most of the work on a runway in the oil town of Rmeilan in Hasaka was complete while a new air base southeast of Kobani, straddling the Turkish border, was being constructed.

There is perhaps no more perverse relationship in the world than that which exists between the West and Saudi Arabia - or, “the ISIS that made it,” as Kamel Daoud, a columnist for Quotidien d’Oran, and the author of “The Meursault Investigation” calls the kingdom.

Amid growing tensions in the Korean peninsula, over 2,000 US troops have arrived in South Korea to take part in a joint military exercise. The joint US-South Korean exercises will be largest military drills to be staged on the Korean Peninsula and are both a warning to Pyongyang as well as an effort to reassure the ‘jittery public‘ in the South. Following recent UN sanctions and citing growing enemy threats, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered his military forces to prepare for using nuclear weapons.