Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that its air defense system, the Arrow 3, intercepted a missile targeting the country’s southern city of Eilat. According to the military, the missile was launched from Yemen and was intercepted over the Red Sea. “The target did not cross into Israeli territory,” IDF said on its official website. Previously, the Houthis claimed they fired a “batch of ballistic missiles” aiming at “various and sensitive targets” in the south of Israel. NN: The missiles being fired are the the longer range Toufan (Typhoon) ballistic missile reported to be in Houthi hands from Iran capable of striking at distances of 840-1,180 miles (1,350-1,900 km,) derided from Iran’s Ghadr missiles capable of achieving near earth orbit in outer space. The Toufan’s longer range suggests it may indeed be the kind of ballistic missile attacks that will eventually bring a further escalation of middle east hostilities.
U.S. Forces Under Fire in Middle East as America Slides Towards Brink
https://youtu.be/dX23SJR6pLU
WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A defective drone in Iraq may have helped keep America from being dragged deeper into a widening Middle East conflict. The drone, which was launched at the Erbil air base by an Iranian-backed militia before sunrise on Oct. 26, penetrated U.S. air defenses and crashed into the second floor of the barracks housing American troops at about 5 a.m, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter. But the device laden with explosives failed to detonate and in the end only one service member suffered a concussion from the impact, said the officials, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about the attack. The U.S. had got lucky, they added, as the drone could have caused carnage had it exploded. The incident was among at least 40 separate drone and rocket attacks that have been launched at U.S. forces by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria over the past three weeks in response to American support for Israel in the Gaza war, according to Pentagon data and the two U.S. officials. The bombardment has only caused a few dozen minor injuries so far, with many of the rockets and one-way attack drones intercepted by U.S. air defenses in Iraq and Syria, where a total of 3,400 American troops are based. David Schenker, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think-tank, cautioned that while neither Iran and its allied groups nor the U.S. appeared to want a direct confrontation, the risks were growing. The possibility of a major strike that draws America into a conflict is “a very realistic concern,” he said.”I think they are calibrating the attacks to harass rather than kill en masse U.S. troops,” he said of Iraqi and Syrian militias. “But there’s a lot more they can do.” It’s unclear how President Joe Biden would respond to a major attack that kills a large number of Americans. Struggling in opinion polls ahead of next year’s presidential election, Biden has so far sought to limit the U.S. role in the conflict mostly to ensuring military aid to Israel. The war broke out when gunmen from Hamas – the Iranian-funded militant group that rules the Palestinian enclave of Gaza – burst into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 240 hostages. Since then, Israel has bombarded the coastal territory relentlessly, killing more than 10,000 people, many of them children. Iran says it had no role in Hamas’ Oct. 7 raid on Israel, though it has welcomed the attack. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Iraq – where most of the attacks on U.S. forces have taken place – to push Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani to crack down on the militias operating there and avert any escalation.
Yet Sudani has had little luck in persuading the militia groups from letting up their assault, or convincing their bankrollers in Iran to rein them in, according to five senior lawmakers in Sudani’s governing coalition, a security adviser to the premier and a militia commander.
The prime minister and around 10 senior members of his government met with the commanders of about a dozen militia groups in Baghdad on Oct. 23 to press the groups to halt their attacks on U.S. forces, said the seven people, who were either present or were briefed on the meeting.
The plea largely fell on deaf ears, though, with most of the commanders vowing to keep up their assault until Israeli forces ended their siege and bombardment of the Gaza Strip, they added.
“No one – not the prime minister or anyone else – can stand against our religious duty,” said Ali Turki, a Shi’ite lawmaker in the governing coalition as well as a commander with the powerful Iranian-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia.
Arif al-Hamami, another Shi’ite lawmaker, said the prospects for diplomacy looked bleak: “I don’t think that the prime minister has the power to stop the attacks as long as Israel is committing atrocities in Gaza with American help.”The Iraqi and Iranian governments didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the militia attacks and the risk of escalation. Iraq’s prime minister has limited control over the militias, whose support he needed to win power a year ago and now form a powerful bloc in his governing coalition. The militant groups, which proliferated in Iraq in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein and his Sunni government, are trained and funded by Shi’ite power Iran.
Biden faces his own dilemmas as he receives a steady stream of reports about hostilities in the region. Among attacks outside Iraq and Syria in recent weeks, Iranian-aligned Houthi fighters unleashed 15 drones and four cruise missiles off the coast of Yemen that were shot down by U.S. Navy destroyer with a crew of hundreds of sailors, U.S. military officials say. The present crisis has erupted following years of steady U.S. withdrawal of military assets from the Middle East, including air defenses, as Washington seeks to focus on Russia’s invasion in Ukraine and mounting tensions with China. That refocus accelerated after Biden’s complete pullout from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s takeover there two years ago. The response by Biden has been cautious so far; he ordered overnight strikes on two Iranian-linked arms storage facilities in Syria last month while they were unoccupied, but has not ordered any strikes in Iraq. On Wednesday, Biden followed up with a similar strike in Syria and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin cautioned: “We urge against any escalation.” Biden has warned Iranian-backed groups across the region, including the large Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, against expanding the conflict but he and other officials have declined to be explicit about what they would do in response. NN: They are going push this as far as they can. By design they will push things too far and create a humanitarian crises.
Israel strikes Syria in response to drone launch towards Eilat……. Fears of wider regional conflict as tensions grow on Lebanon border
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said on Friday that it attacked an organization located in Syria, which it holds responsible for launching an unmanned aerial vehicle that struck a school in the southern Israeli city of Eilat. “The IDF holds the Syrian regime fully responsible for every terror activity emanating from its territory. The IDF will respond severely to every aggression against Israeli territory,” the military said on its Telegram account. Previously, the Houthis claimed they fired a “batch of ballistic missiles” targeting the south of Israel.
Fears of wider regional conflict as tensions grow on Lebanon border
It is happening on a daily basis. Hezbollah fighters moving through the hilly shrub lands of southern Lebanon set up and take aim before attacking Israeli positions.
The Israel Defence Forces is responding by striking back at the Iranian-backed militant group, which is designated a terrorist organisation by much of the world. At the moment the violence is relatively constrained but these are worrying times. In the middle UN peacekeepers are still out on patrol monitoring the situation. There are armoured vehicles snaking along the roads but they are very concerned about where the violence is heading. “It is a very concerning moment,” Andrea Tenenti, spokesman for the mission told Sky News.
“… It is a very concerning moment, a very tense moment. But we are still on the ground. Our troops have not left.
“We have over 10,500 troops from 49 different countries… But we need to be very careful because this exchange of fire is going on, on a daily basis, all along the blue line.” Arab countries are warning the longer the bombing of Gaza goes on the greater the chance of a wider regional conflict. The Saudi Arabian foreign minister has claimed what’s happening in southern Israel is a “flagrant and unjustified violation of international law committed against the Palestinian people”. The Israeli military says it does not want to see any escalation on its northern border but its troops are ready if the attacks continue. Already tens of thousands have been displaced from their communities. And in Lebanon it’s the same. People are moving to safety. Families from villages in the south are fearful another war is coming and that it will be even more destructive than what happened in 2006. At a camp for those who have sought refuge from the fighting, Iman Iskandar said there is a lot of anxiety among the displaced. “… We left our homes because of security issues at the borders of the country, because of the bombing and the war that is going on. We are conditioned to this pattern, but we pray that it never expands.”
There Are Many VERY Confused People IN This World
On the morning of the 7th of October, 2023, the Palestinian militant group Hamas orchestrated a multi-pronged assault against Israel from the Gaza Strip. Their fighters breached the heavily fortified border, committing a mass murder of more than a thousand Israeli civilians, including young children. The political discourse surrounding these brutal events and the war that has come in its wake, especially in the West, has been tinged with a misguided transposition of Western identity politics onto the Middle East that collapses all nuance and reduces a complex situation into a simple binary of “oppressor versus oppressed.” As such, leftists in English-speaking nations tend to see Palestine (including Hamas) as an oppressed, brown victim class whose freedom-fighting “resistance” against their oppressive, white, US-backed colonizers in Israel is a righteous cause with which to stand in solidarity. This simplistic view of the long-standing conflict in the Middle East leads to confused and contradictory thinking, as seen in the slogan (and now meme) “Queers for Palestine” brandished at anti-Israel rallies. It’s worth exploring just how incoherent this concept is.
On the surface, “Queers for Palestine” attempts to meld LGBT advocacy with Palestinian liberation, a juxtaposition that has precipitated a whirlpool of ridicule and criticism due to the fact that LGBT rights scarcely exist within the Muslim world, and the Palestinian territories are no exception. The slogan has been widely satirized with variations like “Chickens for KFC” or “Blacks for the KKK”, which highlight the basic lack of awareness of just how incompatible the values of the Western left are with the Islamic right they so readily champion. Israel is at the forefront of LGBT rights in the Middle East. In Israel, LGBT people are visible members of society with legal protections, civil rights, and a plurality of public acceptance.
Palestine, by contrast, is quite a different story. The UCLA Williams Institute’s 2021 global report on LGBT acceptance rated Palestine came in at 130, behind Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Georgetown University likewise placed Palestine 160th out of 170 countries on their women’s peace and security index, in good company with most of the region. Amnesty International’s 2020 report on human rights highlights the criminalization of male same-sex relationships in Gaza, punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment, with a conspicuous absence of legal protections against anti-LGBT discrimination or harassment.
Another disconcerting element of “Queers for Palestine” is that it popped up in prominent left-wing anti-Israel/pro-Palestine rallies in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s terrorist attacks. Western support for Hamas, under the guise of Palestinian liberation, overlooks the deep-seated radical Islamist ethos driving the organization, which, if unbridled, would jeopardize the very freedoms cherished by LGBT people across the developed world. Anyone who doubts this should try being gay, bi, or trans in most of the Middle East and North Africa’s (MENA) Muslim-majority countries. Virtually all of these nations have laws that criminalize homosexuality and being trans, some of which carry the death penalty. Human Rights Watch’s “Everyone Wants Me Dead” report succinctly encapsulates in its title alone the perilous environment faced by LGBT individuals in these regions.
US launches airstrike many attacks by Iranian militias
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. carried out an airstrike on a weapons warehouse in eastern Syria used by Iranian-backed militias, in retaliation for what has been a growing number of attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in the region for the past several weeks, the Pentagon said.In Wednesday’s strike, two U.S. F-15 fighter jets dropped multiple bombs on a weapons storage facility near Maysulun in Deir el-Zour that was known to be used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, U.S. officials said. “The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement. A military official told reporters in a call that people were seen at the warehouse during the day as the U.S. military watched the site for hours, but the number decreased to about “a couple” overnight when the strike occurred. The official said the strike triggered secondary explosions, indicating the presences of weapons, but the U.S. believes that no civilians were killed and any people at the warehouse were tied to the Revolutionary Guard or militia groups. The strike, said a senior defense official also on the call, was aimed at “disrupting and degrading the capabilities of groups directly responsible for attacking U.S. forces in the region” by specifically targeting facilities associated with the Revolutionary Guard. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide an assessment of the strike. The precision strike, said the defense official, was deliberate and designed not to escalate the conflict in the region. The military official said a deconfliction phone line linking U.S. military personnel to Russian forces in Syria was used to let them know about the attack. This is the second time in less than two weeks that the U.S. has bombed facilities used by the militant groups, many operating under the umbrella of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which U.S. officials say have carried out at least 40 such attacks since Oct. 17. BlackMask Pod Cast:
Blood Bath Not Our blood
Israel-Hamas Conflict Threatens EU Energy Security
- The ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel has destabilized regional energy markets.
- Israel’s offshore Tamar gas field, providing close to 40% of the country’s production, has been shut to prevent possible retaliations by Hamas
- Egypt’s energy security is in such a dire situation that it has even recurred to import a cargo of mixed fuels, including LNG.
The ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, has reached a new turn, with the full encirclement of Gaza City by Israel’s army. Yet, the implications of this asymmetric war are largely misunderstood. Day by day, the energy picture of the Middle East becomes murkier, possibly upending global energy security in ways markets are unable to predict, starting with the wobbly Egyptian energy system. Too focused on decrypting daily volatility on the TTF or Henry Hub after 21 months since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, analysts are neglecting the short and long-term political and geopolitical consequences of market imbalances amid a still-unfolding global energy crisis. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken failed to convince Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pause Israel’s army assault on Gaza and allow much-needed humanitarian assistance is a stark reminder that Netanyahu and his War Cabinet are trying to apply maximum pressure on Hamas, despite disastrous consequences for civilians. This means Israel is ready for a long fight.
The aftermath of the October 7 horrors has led to an unusual public split between the U.S. and Israel. From China to the European Union, all great powers have a say in this crisis, even though the dialogue has been clearly sidelined by Netanyahu’s pursuit of maximalist goals, including the possibility that Palestinians could be forced to leave the Gaza Strip and relocate to the Sinai desert. According to some high-ranking Israeli officials, this represents a “unique and rare opportunity” to settle a new security framework on Israel’s Southern border, leaving Egypt with the puzzle of dealing with millions of refugees. This is an event that the El-Sisi regime is trying to avert in any possible way. Just a few weeks ahead of the next Presidential elections, Egypt’s economy is in shambles. The country is already grappling with problems stretching from a deepening debt crisis and in desperate need of sources of financing, next to this, it’s dealing with a string of currency devaluations and record inflation. No credible opponent is ready to challenge El-Sisi’s hold on power. And yet the Israel-Hamas war is reviving internal dissent among large swaths of Egyptian society that have gone silent after almost 10 years of iron-fist rule. Right now, the consequences of the Israel-Hamas war are putting the energy security of Egypt, the most populated country in the Arab world, in grave danger.
Israel’s offshore Tamar gas field, providing close to 40% of the country’s production, has been shut to prevent possible retaliations by Hamas. Gas production from Leviathan and Karish fields has been diverted to prevalently serve Israel’s domestic needs, while just a fraction of this is now exported to Egypt. Just last August, the two governments agreed to boost gas cooperation and source new gas from Tamar to “strengthen the diplomatic relationship between Israel and Egypt,” ensuring higher revenues for Israel and ensuring the Arab country with a stable gas flow from the neighbor in the years ahead. It is worth highlighting that at that time, although nobody expected to be fighting the largest war in decades in a matter of months, senior government officials criticised the deal because it “could endanger Israel’s energy security.” By all means, the Israel-Egypt energy entente is also the least common denominator for the success of the trilateral MoU signed between the EU and the two to increase regional cooperation and boost exports to European countries, aiming to diversify away from Russia. Cairo has grown increasingly dependent on Israel’s gas to feed its energy system, especially during peak load periods. Even though the country has vast reserves, blackouts and shortages have increased since the start of the last Summer. Now, the Egyptian Cabinet indicates the reduced gas imports from Israel as the cause of relentless power cuts, indirectly transforming the Egyptian grid’s instability into a geopolitical case. Forced to rely on domestic sources, Egypt has de facto halted high-value LNG exports from the two Mediterranean Idku and Damietta terminals, leaving empty tankers and diverting them to other ports. In 2023, around three-quarters of Egyptian cargoes have been directed towards EU and Turkish terminals, relieving these markets from some pressure felt because of Russian supply curtailments. Eni’s CEO Claudio Descalzi, whose company is a major player in Egypt’s offshore, operating the giant Zohr but also the Damietta LNG facility, is optimistic about the resumption of the country’s exports in the coming weeks. However, the outlook for the Egyptian energy industry is far from stable. Because of the gas shortage, power cuts have increased, while petrochemicals and fertilizers companies have reduced stocks at their disposal. The significance of a long-term reduction of fertiliser output, the second largest industry for the country’s exports, could bring further economic distress and devaluation to the Egyptian pound, likewise sending shockwaves across the food markets and threatening the livelihoods of millions.
Egypt’s energy security is in such a dire situation that it has even resorted to importing a cargo of mixed fuels, including LNG. The tanker has navigated to the SUMED port, where the FSRU named BW LNG and chartered by state-owned EGAS has been located since 2015. Soon, the vessel will be headed to Italy, leaving Egypt without the option to import LNG. BW LNG is reminiscent of the dark ages of the Egyptian energy sector, meaning the years following the country’s Revolution and its devastating effect on its energy industry, unable to cope with domestic consumption. Indeed, high energy and food prices have been the root causes of the country’s chronic instability in the first half of the last decade, leading to El-Sisi’s seizure of power. Today, the news of a major LNG exporter in the Mediterranean Basin turning into an importer would be sufficient to spark fears in a market that is already coping with many supply constraints. Against the background of mounting tensions in the Middle East, TTF front-month prices have reached a nine-month high earlier this month. Nevertheless, market watchers remain confident that Arab leaders, including Hezbollah, will maintain a pragmatic approach to the conflict and avoid an escalation. However, a domestic energy crisis overlapping with the Egyptian presidential elections, a democratic façade without real opposition, could ignite a series of unpredictable political consequences. Currently, the entire MENA region is a cauldron, starting with the imperiled Tunisian democracy and the ongoing rift in Libya, both just South of the EU borders and possibly spreading to other countries such as Lebanon and Iraq. The crumbling of the EU-Russia energy interdependence has created an opaque energy landscape. In this scenario, energy trade reflects, more than anything else the political sentiment in the MENA region, and European policymakers should not entertain any illusions and acknowledge that continental energy security does not solely rely on the stability of market fundamentals, but also on geopolitical realities.
By Francesco Sassi
US sends nuclear submarine to Middle East
https://youtu.be/YWQ1Fa5m2bM
The United States deployed the Ohio-class nuclear submarine to the Middle East amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the US Central Command revealed in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani warned the US that if it does not secure a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, it will be “hit hard.” Previously, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with Hamas’ senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran to discuss the development of the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. According to Iranian media, Khamenei reiterated his support for the Palestinian people, accusing Israel of committing crimes with the direct assistance of the US. NN: Call me stupid. 2 aircraft carriers now a nuclear powered submarine deployed to the middle east. Sounds like escalation to me..
Hamas tried to send fighters to Egypt in ambulances for wounded Gazans — US official
Israeli officials say inspectors uncovered oxygen concentrators for tunnels used by Palestinian terror groups inside truck carrying aid to Strip
Hamas tried to sneak its fighters out of the Gaza Strip in ambulances that evacuated dozens of wounded Palestinians to Egypt earlier this week, a senior Biden administration official said Friday. Hamas had compiled a list of the seriously wounded that it wanted to evacuate from Gaza for treatment in Egypt, along with thousands of foreign nationals looking to flee the enclave. The list was then vetted by Egypt and the United States, which found that a third of the names on it were of Hamas fighters, the administration official said, adding that the list was rejected and none of the 76 wounded Palestinians who were ultimately evacuated in ambulances out of Gaza were members of the terror group. “These weren’t for use in the hospitals, but below them. That’s why they were smuggled among boxes of cookies,” one of the senior Israeli officials said, adding that the entire truck in which the oxygen concentrators were found was barred from entering Gaza. Meanwhile, two senior Israeli officials told The Times of Israel that Israeli inspectors earlier this week uncovered, hidden in an aid truck, several oxygen concentrators meant to aerate the tunnels operated by terror organizations in Gaza.
Guterres ‘horrified’ by Israel’s ambulance attack
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is “horrified” by Israel’s attack on an ambulance convoy outside the Al Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip. He said that the targeting of Palestinian civilians “must stop” and called for a humanitarian ceasefire. “International humanitarian law must be respected. Civilians and civilian infrastructure, including humanitarian and medical workers and assets must be protected. Civilians must also not be used as human shields. Essential supplies and services and unimpeded humanitarian access must be safely allowed into and across Gaza at a scale commensurate with this dramatic situation. All those with influence must exert it to ensure respect for the rules of war, end the suffering and avoid a spillover of the conflict that could engulf the whole region,” Guterres said. NN: Are we to believe that he does not know Hamas uses the basements of hospitals as their supply and command centers, And ambulances as Uber terrorists transportation services.
Young Americans Support Hamas…. Why As China
GOP Rep. Gallagher Calls TikTok ‘Digital Fentanyl’ Brainwashing American Youth Against ‘Israel,’ ‘Jews,’ and ‘the West
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, excoriated TikTok for brainwashing American youth against “Israel,” “Jews,” and “the West” in a scathing op-ed for The Free Press. According to Gallagher, the Chinese-owned social media app is in large part responsible for the fact that 51% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 believe that Hamas’ brutal attack on Israeli civilians was justified according to a Harvard University/Harris poll.
“TikTok is not just an app teenagers use to make viral dance videos. A growing number of Americans rely on it for their news,” began Gallagher for the online outlet under the headline: “Why Do Young Americans Support Hamas? Look at TikTok.”
“Today, TikTok is the top search engine for more than half of Gen Z, and about six in ten Americans are hooked on the app before their seventeenth birthday. And it is controlled by America’s foremost adversary, one that does not share our interests or our values: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” added the Wisconsin Republican. He went on to argue that “the application’s algorithm is exquisitely tuned to prioritize polarizing outrage and addictive, brain-numbing nonsense (at best) and dangerous propaganda (at worst). Put differently, ByteDance and the CCP have decided that China’s children get spinach, and America’s get digital fentanyl.”
Gallagher continued:
If you doubt that the CCP would introduce bias—against Israel, against Jews, against the West, or anything else—into apps under its de facto control, consider that on October 31 The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese web platforms Baidu and Alibaba have wiped Israel off the map—literally. The two most widely used mapping programs in China show the outlines of Israel’s territory but do not label it as Israel, and may not have for some time.
Analyses have shown that since Hamas’ attack on October 7, TikTok has been inundated with expressions of support for the Palestinian cause and disdain for Israel.
“So long as TikTok—and control of its algorithm—remain in the grip of the Chinese Communist Party, we are ceding the ability to censor Americans’ speech to a foreign adversary,” concluded Gallagher. “Time for Congress to take action. Time to ban TikTok.”
Minuteman III test launch fails ‘due to anomaly ‘North Korea slams US Minuteman III test launch
The United States Air Force revealed early on Thursday that a Space Launch Delta 30’s test launch of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile failed “due to an anomaly.” “The test launch program helps the command evaluate the Minuteman III and gather data to keep the system effective. The command learns lessons from every test launch. Gathering data from the launch allows AFGSC [Air Force Global Strike Command] to identify and correct any issues with the weapon system to ensure the Minuteman III’s continued reliability and accuracy,” the Air Force added. The statement emphasized that anomalies during test launches can be attributed to either the operational platform or the test equipment and underscored the importance of conducting analysis to determine the cause of these anomalies.
‘North Korea slams US Minuteman III test launch
North Korea slammed on Friday the United States test launch of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), calling it a “provocation,” according to the country’s state news agency. “On Nov. 1, the United States conducted the test-fire of ICBM Minuteman III at the Vandenberg space force base, in the presence of a puppet South Korean military delegation. The launch came to failure, but the test-fire, resumed in seven years with the participation of puppet South Korean military gangsters as part of a demonstration of its ‘extended deterrence commitment,’ clearly shows who is the target of the US nuclear and strategic weapons,” the agency added. NN: This is rich rocket man in N.Korea calls the minute man missle test provocation. We should stop pussy footing around and let them we will nuke them to the stone age.