NKorea fires 3 short-range missiles
U.S. officials say tests fail
SEOUL, South Korea — Three North Korea shortrange ballistic missiles failed on Saturday, U.S. military officials said, which, if true, would be a temporary setback to Pyongyang’s rapid nuclear and missile expansion.
The U.S. Pacific Command said in a statement that two of the North’s missiles failed in flight after an unspecified distance, and another appeared to have blown up immediately. It added that the missile posed no threat to the U.S. territory of Guam, which the North had previously warned it would fire missiles toward.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the projectiles fired from the North’s eastern coast flew about 250 kilometers (155 miles), though it did not mention any failures. It said South Korea and U.S. militaries were analyzing the launch and didn’t immediately provide more details.
South Korea’s presidential office said the U.S. and South Korean militaries will proceed with their ongoing war games “even more thoroughly” in response to the latest launch. They are the first known missile firings since July, when the North successfully flight tested a pair of intercontinental ballistic missiles that analysts say could reach deep into the U.S. mainland when perfected.
The White House said that President Donald Trump was briefed on the latest North Korean activity and “we are monitoring the situation.”
The rival Koreas recently saw their always testy relationship get worse after Trump traded warlike threats. Saturday’s launch comes during an annual joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea that the North condemns as an invasion rehearsal, and weeks after Pyongyang threatened to lob missiles toward Guam.
YANGON, Myanmar — An attack by ethnic Rohingya militants in western Myanmar left 12 security personnel and 77 Rohingya Muslims dead in a dramatic escalation of communal violence that has plagued the region, as the United States urged authorities to avoid a response that would inflame the tensions.
The office of the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, said Friday that military and border police responded to the attacks by launching “clearance operations.”
Police fought off groups of as many as 100 Rohingya attackers armed with guns, machetes and homemade grenades. The captured weapons were shown in photos posted online by the government.
A witness in Maungdaw township in Rakhine state, contacted by phone, said soldiers entered her village at about 10 a.m. Friday, burned homes and property, and shot dead at least 10 people.
Venezuela’s Maduro vows to punish opponents for U.S. sanctions
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro vowed Friday to prosecute for treason opponents he accused of being behind sweeping U.S. financial sanctions that will strain relations between the countries and make it harder for the socialist leader to raise badly needed cash.
Maduro accused President Donald Trump of trampling on international law and relations with Latin America by taking actions that he said would cause “great damage” to the Venezuelan oil economy as well as American investors who own the country’s bonds.
He singled out the president of Venezuela’s congress, Julio Borges, as being the “mastermind” of the financial and economic “blockade” and called on the government-stacked supreme court and a new, all-powerful constitutional assembly to initiate proceedings against opponents who have lobbied in favor of the sanctions.
“You’ve got to be a big traitor to your country to ask for sanctions against Venezuela,” Maduro said in a televised appearance.
The sanctions, which Trump signed by executive order, prohibit American financial institutions from providing new money to the government or the state oil company, PDVSA.
They also ban trading in two bonds the government recently issued to circumvent its increasing isolation from Western financial markets.
Knife-wielding man shot dead in Brussels ‘terror attack’
BRUSSELS — Belgian soldiers shot a man dead in downtown Brussels on Friday evening after he attacked the troops with a knife in what prosecutors described as a “terror attack.”
Spokeswoman Esther Natus of the federal prosecutor’s office, which handles terrorism investigations, said the man twice shouted “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” as he ran at the soldiers.
“We do consider it a terror attack,” Natus said. She declined to identify the man or confirm whether he was known to police, saying only that “the suspect is dead” and one of the soldiers was slightly wounded.
Brussels Mayor Philippe Close said three soldiers came under attack and one had been hospitalized.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Militants stormed a packed Shiite mosque in the Afghan capital during Friday prayers, in an attack that lasted for hours and ended with at least 20 worshippers killed and another 50 seriously wounded, many of them children, an official said.
Two of the assailants blew themselves up and another two were shot to death by Afghan security forces, according to police official Mohammed Sadique Muradi.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest to target Afghanistan’s minority Shiites. The Taliban condemned the violence, with a spokesman for the militants, Zabihullah Mujahid, telling The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the group had nothing to do with it.
IS militants push back advancing Syrian troops near Raqqa
BEIRUT — Islamic State group militants pushed back government forces advancing on one of the last towns still in IS hands in the province of Raqqa, killing over two dozen soldiers and seizing vehicles, a Syria monitoring group and the extremists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the early Friday counterattack by IS shortcircuited a government advance on Maadan, which brought them within only a few kilometers (miles) in recent days.
The Russia-backed government forces have been on a multi-pronged offensive, moving toward the IS-held territories in Deir el-Zour province in the east from northern, central and southern Syria.
On Friday, the Russian military said its air force is now focusing on supporting the Syrian army’s offensive in Deir el-Zour. Syrian government forces control around half the city and a nearby air base, both of which are besieged by the IS militants.