N. KOREA FIRES PROJECTILE OFF EASTERN COAST
The South Korean military said North Korea fired several projectiles off its eastern coast early Monday in what appears to be the second launch in a month.
South Korean officials said the missiles flew about 1,000 kilometers, or 620 miles, into waters off its east coast.
It was not immediately clear what type of missiles were fired or the exact number, the Associated Press reported.
The tests come as leader Kim Jong Un pushes for a nuclear and missile program that can deter what he calls U.S. and South Korean hostility toward the North.
South Korea’s acting president, Hwang Kyo Ahn, called for an immediate meeting of the National Security Council’s standing committee, NBC reported.
CAR BOMBS TARGET IRAQI TROOPS IN WESTERN MOSUL
Iraqi troops Sunday encountered the heaviest clashes yet with Islamic State group fighters since the start of the push in western Mosul more than two weeks ago, according to a senior commander.
Maj. Gen. Haider al-Maturi of the Federal Police Commandos Division told the Associated Press that Islamic State militants dispatched at least six suicide car bombs, which were all destroyed before reaching the troops. The militants, he said, are moving from house to house and deploying snipers.
The wave of heavy resistance comes as Iraqi forces launched attacks against Islamic State-held neighborhoods in western Mosul from three points Sunday morning. The federal police are closing in on the city’s main government complex, and Iraq’s special forces are attempting to push into the Shuhada and Mansour neighborhoods.
UN: 66,000 DISPLACED IN 5 MONTHS OF SYRIA CLASHES
Five months of multisided clashes in Syria’s crowded northern battlefield have displaced some 66,000 people, a U.N. humanitarian agency said Sunday, a day after the U.S. bolstered Kurdish-led forces with a deployment of armored vehicles amid preparations for a push toward the Islamic State group’s de facto capital.
Besides the autonomous Kurdish-led forces, Turkish, Syrian government and Syrian opposition fighters have all been jostling for territory formerly held by the Islamic State group.
The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Syrian Kurdish PKK party, are the current front-runners in the race to Raqqa, the Islamic State capital.