The radioactive dust from North Korea's fifth and most powerful nuclear weapons test had barely settled Friday when the calls to slap more sanctions on Kim Jong-un's regime began.

Republicans in Congress howled about the need to punish Pyongyang and crack down on its Chinese allies, and President Barack Obama vowed that the fallout would include "additional significant steps, including new sanctions, to demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences to its unlawful and dangerous actions."

But if history is any indication, imposing more sanctions will do virtually nothing to stop North Korea from continuing to detonate nukes and launch missiles. After the regime's last nuclear test in January, the UN Security Council's Panel of Experts on North Korea published a report that found, despite more than a decade of increasingly harsh sanctions, "no indications that the country intends to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programs."

The report, which raised "serious questions about the efficacy of the current United Nations sanctions regime," detailed the myriad ways the Kim regime has repeatedly managed to make a mockery of international efforts to prevent money, luxury goods, and weapons components from getting into the country. In the months after the report was published, prior to the latest nuclear test, VICE News spoke with numerous experts who further explained how Pyongyang evades sanctions and why additional restrictions are unlikely to make much difference.

"On the finance side, they've adopted a number of techniques," said Bill Newcomb, a former US State Department official and ex-member of the UN Security Council's Panel of Experts on North Korea. "They're the same sorts of techniques that a narcotics operation would use to launder their profits and so forth, but North Korea has an advantage because it's a state and so it's able to use its embassies abroad with diplomats."

The latest nuclear test, which occurred on the 68th anniversary of the founding of North Korea's government, created a 5.3 magnitude earthquake. Judging from the seismic data, nuclear weapons experts estimated that the blast was roughly equivalent to the 20-kiloton bomb the US dropped on Nagasaki during World War II. The question now is whether the North is capable of putting its nuke on top of a missile. Analysts remain skeptical, but North Korean state media claimed on Friday that the country now has a functional warhead that is "standardized to be able to be mounted on strategic ballistic rockets."

After a string of North Korean missile tests earlier this year, South Korea agreed to let the US install an advanced missile defense system in a rugged area about 135 miles southeast of Seoul. The move upset China, North Korea's closest ally and largest trading partner, which feels uneasy about having a powerful American weapon its backyard.

The Chinese have strongly condemned North Korea's nuclear tests, and Beijing promised in January to play ball with the US and its allies by helping enforce the latest round of sanctions. But even before the missile defense system upset the Chinese, the experts who spoke with VICE News were skeptical about whether China would keep its word.

"China will use the sanctions as a convenient justification or rationale for occasionally cracking down on North Korea as it sees fit," said Marcus Noland, a specialist in Korean issues at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "North Korea will do something, the Chinese will be annoyed, they'll crack down and say, 'Hey, look, we're good global citizens.'"

One of the key sanctions issues involves restrictions on exports of North Korean coal and other minerals. While there's evidence that North Korea's state-owned mining companies have funneled money to the country's weapons program, coal shipments are often exempt from sanctions because of rules that are designed to shield the North's civilian population from bearing the brunt of the punishment.

"The sanctions have to be targeted at military and illicit activities, not quote-unquote civilian activities," said Curtis Melvin, a researcher at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University and a contributor to the website 38 North. "They're specifically designed not to hurt ordinary people. That really kind of limits the kind of entities that can be sanctioned, the breadth of industries that can be sanctioned."

Chinese banks with nothing to lose are another problem. In addition to the UN sanctions, the US has imposed its own slew of restrictions on doing business with North Korea. If banks are caught taking money from blacklisted North Korean entities, the Treasury Department can cut off their access to the dollar system, a crippling blow to institutions that want to do business overseas.

According to Joshua Stanton, an attorney who helped US lawmakers craft sanctions on North Korea in 2013, sometimes Chinese banks are "more worried about our Treasury Department than their own government."

"I don't want to say US sanctions are greater than UN sanctions," Stanton said. "I think they need each other, but if you have US sanctions without UN sanctions you get Cuba — no one follows it except us, and there are too many holes in the net."

The problem, according to Noland, is that some Chinese banks don't care about maintaining access to the dollar system. And with the North Koreans desperate for a place to stash their cash, the banks can charge a premium for their services.

"There is going to be a fringe of small Chinese financial institutions, small Chinese trading companies, small Chinese whatevers, who don't do any business in the US, and given North Korea's isolation, they could be a high-margin, highly profitable business," he said. "Some obscure Chinese company is going to step into the breach."

Even if Beijing decided to crack down on North Korea's Chinese partners, it's possible the Kim regime could still find a way to import banned items. The UN Security Council's Panel of Experts report from earlier this year is littered with examples of incidents where North Korea used foreign-flagged ships and front companies to dodge sanctions.

Incredibly, Pyongyang was even able to import a fleet of armored Mercedes-Benz limousines from a US company in New Jersey. The limos, which were obtained via a North Korean shipping agency that disguised itself as a Chinese logistics company, were last spotted cruising through the North Korean capital during a military parade in October 2015.

Newcomb, the former Panel of Experts member, noted that the burden of complying with sanctions and inspecting cargo often falls on unsuspecting businesses and undermanned or poorly trained customs offices at ports around the world.

'They're using the same systems that giant companies or plutocrats are using to hide their money overseas.'

"They don't have the customs officials to inspect the cargo and recognize things that could be parts of a missile system, or analyze a shipment of metal to see if it's military or arms-related goods," Newcomb said, adding that North Korea tends to seek out countries with loosely regulated financial systems or places where bribery is rampant. "Wherever they can operate or there's less oversight, they tend to find it."

North Korea has also been linked to counterfeit currency and cigarettes,methamphetamine production, and the smuggling of ivory, rhino horn, and other exotic animal parts. These lucrative enterprises are reportedly controlled by Office 39, describedby the US Treasury Department as "a secretive branch of the government... that provides critical support to [the] North Korean leadership in part through engaging in illicit economic activities and managing slush funds."

Michael Madden, a visiting scholar at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the author of the website North Korea Leadership Watch, said the Kim regime is ingenious when it comes to finding ways to earn — and conceal — hard currency.

"They're using the same systems that giant companies or plutocrats are using to hide their money overseas," Madden said. "They're not hiding from taxes, but from international scrutiny."

Of course, the sanctions have had some economic impact on North Korea. While elites in 'Pyongyhattan' live lavishly, people outside the capital still face shortages of food, medicine, and other basic necessities. But it seems clear that the Kim regime has no qualms about letting its citizens suffer while it continues to develop nuclear weapons, and growing recognition of this reality has led to calls to end the sanctions.

On Friday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for Pyongyang to "reverse its course and commit to a path of denuclearization," but he also stressed the need to "urgently break this accelerating spiral of escalation," perhaps signaling a change of tack. And while Obama promised to impose new sanctions, Secretary of State John Kerry said the US remained open to "credible and authentic" talks with North Korea.

But judging by a statement issued by North Korean state media on Friday, the Kim regime has no intention of giving up its nukes any time soon. The message blasted the existing sanctions as a "desperate" move by the US to block North Korea's "right to self-defense," and vowed to "take further measures to bolster the state nuclear force in quality and quantity."

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Foreign states have given Syrian rebels surface-to-surface Grad rockets of a type not previously supplied to them in response to a major Russian-backed offensive in Aleppo, a rebel commander told Reuters on Wednesday.

The Grad rockets with a range of 22 km and 40 km have been supplied in "excellent quantities" and will be used on battlefronts in Aleppo, Hama and the coastal region, rebel commander Colonel Fares al-Bayoush said.

While Grad missiles have previously been supplied to rebels, Bayoush said it was the first time this particular type had been delivered. Each salvo contains 40 rockets, he said, without giving further details. The rebels had previous stocks of the rocket captured from army stores, he added.

Bayoush added that there was as yet no sign of the rebels being supplied with anti-aircraft missiles they have demanded.

A video posted on YouTube on Monday showed Free Syrian Army rebels firing Grad missiles at government positions near Aleppo. Bayoush confirmed the weapons being fired in the video were newly supplied.

Rebel groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner have received military aid from states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad via a U.S.-backed coordination center in Turkey.

The rebellion's foreign backers have previously supplied Russian-made Grad rockets to the rebels: rockets with a 20 km (12 mile) ranges were delivered earlier this year in response to an earlier offensive in Aleppo, rebels told Reuters at the time.

(Reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy destroyer was targeted on Saturday in a failed missile attack from territory in Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, the third such incident in the past week, a U.S. defense official said.

Multiple missiles were fired at the USS Mason sailing in international waters in the Red Sea but the warship took countermeasures to defend itself and was not hit, the official said, citing initial information.

The latest attack could provoke further retaliation by the U.S. military, which launched cruise missiles on Thursday against three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen in response to the two previous failed missile firings against the Mason. 

The U.S. missile strikes, authorized by President Barack Obama, marked Washington's first direct military action against suspected Houthi-controlled targets in Yemen's conflict and raised questions about the potential for further escalation. 

The Houthi movement earlier this week denied responsibility for the missile attacks on the Mason and warned that it too would defend itself.

The Pentagon on Thursday stressed the limited nature of the strikes, aimed at radar that it suspected enabled the launch of at least three missiles against the Mason on Sunday and Wednesday.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said at the time that the U.S. counter-strikes were not connected to the broader civil war in Yemen, which has unleashed famine and killed more than 10,000 people since March 2015 in the Arab world's poorest country.

The United States, a longtime ally of Saudi Arabia, has provided aerial refueling of warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition striking Yemen and it supplies U.S. weapons to the kingdom.

Iran, which supports the Houthi group, said last week it had deployed two warships to the Gulf of Aden, to protect ship lanes from piracy.

(Reporting By Idrees Ali and Matt Spetalnick; editing by Diane Craft)

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The Air Force will likely have high-speed, long-range and deadly hypersonic weapons by the 2020s, providing kinetic energy destructive power able to travel thousands of miles toward enemy targets at five-times the speed of sound.

“Air speed makes them much more survivable and hard to shoot down. If you can put enough fuel in them that gets them a good long range. You are going roughly a mile a second so if you put in 1,000 seconds of fuel you can go 1,000 miles - so that gives you lots of standoff capability,” Air Force Chief Scientist Greg Zacharias told Scout Warrior in an interview.  

While much progress has been made by Air Force and Pentagon scientists thus far, much work needs to be done before hypersonic air vehicles and weapons are technologically ready to be operational in combat circumstances.

“Right now we are focusing on technology maturation so all the bits and pieces, guidance, navigation control, material science, munitions, heat transfer and all that stuff,” Zacharias added.

Zacharias explained that, based upon the current trajectory, the Air Force will likely have some initial hypersonic weapons ready by sometime in the 2020s. A bit further away in the 2030s, the service could have a hypersonic drone or ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) vehicle.

“I don’t yet know if this is envisioned to be survivable or returnable. It may be one way,” Zacharias explained.

A super high-speed drone or ISR platform would better enable air vehicles to rapidly enter and exit enemy territory and send back relevant imagery without being detected by enemy radar or shot down. 

By the 2040s, however, the Air Force could very well have a hypersonic “strike” ISR platform able to both conduct surveillance and delivery weapons, he added.

A weapon traveling at hypersonic speeds, naturally, would better enable offensive missile strikes to destroy targets such and enemy ships, buildings, air defenses and even drones and fixed-wing or rotary aircraft depending upon the guidance technology available.

A key component of this is the fact that weapons traveling at hypersonic speeds would present serious complications for targets hoping to defend against them – they would have only seconds with which to respond or defend against an approaching or incoming attack.

Hypersonic weapons will quite likely be engineered as “kinetic energy” strike weapons, meaning they will not use explosives but rather rely upon sheer speed and the force of impact to destroy targets.

“They have great kinetic energy to get through hardened targets. You could trade off smaller munitions loads for higher kinetic energy. It is really basically the speed and the range. Mach 5 is five times the speed of sound,” he explained.

The speed of sound can vary, depending upon the altitude; at the ground level it is roughly 1,100 feet per second. Accordingly, if a weapon is engineered with 2,000 seconds worth of fuel – it can travel up to 2,000 miles to a target.

“If you can get control at a low level and hold onto Mach 5, you can do pretty long ranges,” Zacharias said.

Although potential defensive uses for hypersonic weapons, interceptors or vehicles are by no means beyond the realm of consideration, the principle effort at the moment is to engineer offensive weapons able to quickly destroy enemy targets at great distances.

Some hypersonic vehicles could be developed with what Zacharias called “boost glide” technology, meaning they fire up into the sky above the earth’s atmosphere and then utilize the speed of decent to strike targets as a re-entry vehicle.

For instance, Zacharias cited the 1950s-era experimental boost-glide vehicle called the X-15 which aimed to fire 67-miles up into the sky before returning to earth.

China’s Hypersonic Weapons Tests

Zacharias did respond to recent news about China’s claimed test of a hypersonic weapon, a development which caused concern among Pentagon leaders and threat analysts.

While some Pentagon officials have said the Chinese have made progress with effort to develop hypersonic weapons, Zacharias emphasized that much of the details regarding this effort were classified and therefore not publicly available.

Nevertheless, should China possess long-range, high-speed hypersonic weapons – it could dramatically impact circumstances known in Pentagon circles and anti-access/area denial.

This phenomenon, referred to at A2/AD, involves instances wherein potential adversaries use long-range sensors and precision weaponry to deny the U.S. any ability to operate in the vicinity of some strategically significant areas such as closer to an enemy coastline. Hypersonic weapons could hold slower-moving Navy aircraft carriers at much greater risk, for example.

An April 27th report in the Washington Free Beach citing Pentagon officials stating that China successfully tested a new high-speed maneuvering warhead.

“The test of the developmental DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle was monitored after launch Friday atop a ballistic missile fired from the Wuzhai missile launch center in central China, said officials familiar with reports of the test,” the report from the Washington Free Beacon said. “The maneuvering glider, traveling at several thousand miles per hour, was tracked by satellites as it flew west along the edge of the atmosphere to an impact area in the western part of the country.”

X-51 Waverider

Scientists with the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Pentagon's research arm are working to build a new hypersonic air vehicle that can travel at speeds up to Mach 5 while carrying guidance systems and other materials.

Air Force senior officials have said the service wants to build upon the successful hypersonic flight test of the X-51 Waverider 60,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean in May of 2013.

The Air Force and DARPA, the Pentagon's research entity, plan to have a new and improved hypersonic air vehicle by 2023.

The X-51 was really a proof of concept test designed to demonstrate that a scram jet engine could launch off an aircraft and go hypersonic.

The scramjet was able to go more than Mach 5 until it ran out of fuel. It was a very successful test of an airborne hypersonic weapons system, Air Force officials said.

The successful test was particularly welcome news for Air Force developers because the X-51 Waverider had previously had some failed tests.

The 2013 test flight, which wound up being the longest air-breathing hypersonic flight ever, wrapped up a $300 million technology demonstration program beginning in 2004, Air Force officials said.

A B-52H Stratofortress carried the X-51A on its wing before it was released at 50,000 feet and accelerated up to Mach 4.8 in 26 seconds. As the scramjet climbed to 60,000 feet it accelerated to Mach 5.1.

The X-51 was also able to send back data before crashing into the ocean -- the kind of information now being used by scientists to engineer a more complete hypersonic vehicle.

"After exhausting its 240-second fuel supply, the vehicle continued to send back telemetry data until it splashed down into the ocean and was destroyed as designed," according to an Air Force statement. "At impact, 370 seconds of data were collected from the experiment."

This Air Force the next-generation effort is not merely aimed at creating another scramjet but rather engineering a much more comprehensive hypersonic air vehicle, service scientists have explained.

Hypersonic flight requires technology designed to enable materials that can operate at the very high temperatures created by hypersonic speeds. They need guidance systems able to function as those speeds as well, Air Force officials have said.

The new air vehicle effort will progress alongside an Air Force hypersonic weapons program. While today's cruise missiles travel at speeds up to 600 miles per hour, hypersonic weapons will be able to reach speeds of Mach 5 to Mach 10, Air Force officials said.

The new air vehicle could be used to transport sensors, equipment or weaponry in the future, depending upon how the technology develops.

Also, Pentagon officials have said that hypersonic aircraft are expected to be much less expensive than traditional turbine engines because they require fewer parts.

For example, senior Air Force officials have said that hypersonic flight could speed up a five- hour flight from New York to Los Angeles to about 30 minutes. That being said, the speed of acceleration required for hypersonic flight may preclude or at least challenge the scientific possibility of humans being able to travel at that speed – a question that has yet to be fully determined.

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Tehran (AFP) - Iran's missile programme is "non-negotiable" and tests will continue, foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said on Tuesday, following criticism from European Union diplomats.

"Iran's defence capabilities cannot be compromised and are under no circumstance negotiable," he told state television IRIB.

"Missile tests are conducted within the framework of Iran's defence policies."

A meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday urged Tehran to refrain from ballistic missile testing.

Iran's military has carried out a number of missile tests in recent months, which the United States and European governments have said are a breach of its commitments under last year's nuclear deal.

Western powers say the missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads and therefore go against the deal, under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of global sanctions.

The EU foreign ministers called on all sides to respect the agreement -- reflecting concerns over US president-elect Donald Trump's vow to ditch it.

Ghasemi welcomed the EU's "interest and determination to develop ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran and the renewed emphasis on the commitment of this union in the full implementation by all sides" of the nuclear deal.

The EU has been pushing to open an office in Tehran amid a surge in interest from European companies hoping to resume trade ties.

But there has been push-back from Iranian conservatives, who say the office would be used to press human rights issues, and Ghasemi said last week it was "unlikely such an office would be opened... in the short term".

The head of Iran's Human Rights Council, which falls under the hardline judiciary, said last month: "If this office is used for following up trade issues, there is no problem. But they have said that following the opening of this office, they want to have close contacts with human rights defenders and NGOs.

"So they should know that the judiciary will definitely not allow such a den of corruption to be established inside Iran," he said, according to the ISNA news agency.

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Tokyo (AFP) - Japan has told Russia the deployment of missiles on disputed islands in the Pacific is "deplorable", Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday, ahead of talks aimed at resolving a decades-old territorial spat.

The positioning of coastal defence missiles on two of the four islands in contention was reported by Russian media this week and comes after concerted efforts by both countries to improve relations.

Japan-Russian ties have been hamstrung by a row dating back to the end of World War II when Soviet troops seized the southernmost islands in the Kuril chain, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, that lies off the northeast coast of Hokkaido. 

The tensions have prevented the countries from signing a peace treaty formally ending wartime hostilities, and have hindered trade and investment.

"The Northern Territories are an inherent part of Japan's territory," Abe told parliament on Friday.

Abe said Japan had told Russia the deployment "is deplorable" and "is contradictory to Japan's position" on the issue.

However, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday the missile deployment was aimed at the "consistent strengthening of national security". 

"Missile systems were deployed to the southern Kurils in line with that position," she said, calling them "an integral part of Russian territory".

The remarks came ahead of a December 15 meeting between Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Yamaguchi city in western Japan, which is aimed at making progress on the territorial dispute. 

The two leaders have met several times since Abe took office in December 2012, most recently last Sunday in Peru on the sidelines of a Pacific-rim summit.

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Pakistan reportedly fired its first submarine-launched nuclear-capable missile: the Babur-3 missile, which has a 280-mile range.

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Tensions between India and Pakistan are on the rise after Pakistan launched a nuclear-capable Babur-3 missile from a submarine for the first time.

Pakistan has previously launched missiles from land and air-based platforms, but sources say it felt the need for a sea-based programme was essential.

A senior government official told the Financial Times it’s “the completion of our triad”.

Pakistan’s Major General Asif Ghafoor posted a video of the launch on Twitter:

Inter Services Public Relations, the media wing of the Pakistani military, said the missile “hit its target with precise accuracy”.

“Pakistan eyes this hallmark development as a step towards reinforcing the policy of credible minimum deterrence,” the military said.

“It is manifestation of the strategy of measured response to nuclear strategies and postures being adopted in Pakistan’s neighborhood.”

Of the nine states which possess nuclear weapons, Pakistan is the only Muslim majority country to do so.

The Babur-3 has a range of 450km. In December last year, Pakistan successfully tested a land-based variant, the Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) Babur-2.

Two weeks ago, India test-fired its ballistic Agni-V missile, with a range of 5000km. That prompted Chinese state media to “communicate the message” that it would be willing to help Pakistan match India’s nuclear ambitions.

Tensions between the countries have been rising again since September, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in an attack on an army base in Kashmir.

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North Korea declared on Sunday it could test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at any time from any location set by leader Kim Jong Un, saying a hostile U.S. policy was to blame for its arms development.

Kim said on Jan. 1 that his nuclear-capable country was close to test-launching an ICBM.

"The ICBM will be launched anytime and anywhere determined by the supreme headquarters of the DPRK," an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency, using the acronym for the country's name.

The North is formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said on Sunday that North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities and ballistic missile defence programs constituted a "serious threat" to the United States and that it was prepared to shoot down a North Korean missile launch or test.

"We only would shoot them down ... if it was threatening, that is if it were coming toward our territory or the territory of our friends and allies," Carter said during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

The United States said on Jan. 5 that North Korea had demonstrated a "qualitative" improvement in its nuclear and missile capabilities after an unprecedented level of tests last year.

North Korea has been testing rocket engines and heat-shields for an ICBM while developing the technology to guide a missile after re-entry into the atmosphere following a liftoff, experts have said.

While Pyongyang is close to a test, it is likely to take some years to perfect the weapon, according to the experts.

Once fully developed, a North Korean ICBM could threaten the continental United States, which is around 9,000 km (5,500 miles) from the North. ICBMs have a minimum range of about 5,500 km (3,400 miles), but some are designed to travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles) or farther.

On Monday, South Korean defence ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun called North Korea's statement a "provocative announcement" and told a regular news briefing that Pyongyang would face stronger sanctions if it were to launch an ICBM. Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said there were no signs of any launch preparations.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump responded to Kim's comments on an ICBM test by declaring in a tweet last week: "It won't happen!"

Asked for comment on Sunday, the White House referred to Jan. 3 comments by White House press secretary Josh Earnest in which he said the U.S. military believed it could protect against the threat emanating from North Korea.

In that briefing, Earnest also touted the defensive measures the United States had taken to guard against the threat, such as anti-ballistic missile facilities that had been installed around the Pacific region and diplomatic pressure to discourage North Korea from pursuing its nuclear program.

A U.S. State Department spokesman said last week that the United States did not believe that North Korea was capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The sanctions were tightened last month after Pyongyang conducted its fifth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 9.

"The U.S. is wholly to blame for pushing the DPRK to have developed ICBM as it has desperately resorted to anachronistic policy hostile toward the DPRK for decades to encroach upon its sovereignty and vital rights," KCNA quoted the spokesman as saying.

"Anyone who wants to deal with the DPRK would be well advised to secure a new way of thinking after having clear understanding of it," the spokesman said, according to KCNA.

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Syria says Israel has launched missiles that hit near a military airport west of Damascus, triggering a fire.

In a statement carried on the official news agency SANA, the military says the missiles that were launched early Friday fell in the vicinity of the Mezzeh military airport. It did not say whether there were any casualties.

It was the third such Israeli strike into Syria recently, according to the Syrian government.

On Dec. 7, the Syrian government reported Israel fired surface-to-surface missiles that also struck near Mezzeh airport. A week earlier, SANA said Israeli jets fired two missiles from Lebanese airspace toward the outskirts of Damascus, in the Sabboura area.

The Israeli military has declined to comment on those incidents, and there was no immediate comment on Friday's attack.

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Ukrainian authorities have confirmed that they seized a shipment of missile system components bound for Iran, according to official statements that could put the Islamic Republic in violation of international bans on such behavior.

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, or DPSU, announced late last week that it had seized at least 17 boxes filled with missile components bound for Iran, according to IHS Jane’s.

“The DPSU said that, during an inspection of the aircraft on 19 January, its personnel had found 17 boxes with no accompanying documents, which the aircraft’s crew said contained an aircraft repair kit,” according to the report.“Three boxes contained components that were believed to be for a Fagot anti-tank guided missile system, the rest contained aircraft parts.”

Days after this finding, the DPSU said that it had confirmed the missile components were destined for Iran’s Fagot system.

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and expert on rogue regimes, said that Iran has been illicitly moving such weapons for quite some time.

“This isn’t the first time Iran has gotten caught red handed smuggling weapons with false manifests, for example, in 2010 in Nigeria,” Rubin said. “The question is how often does Iran get away with such smuggling and for what purpose? After all, if the weaponry is legal, there’s no reason for lying. If it’s not, Iran is violating international agreements. Either way, only fools and secretaries of state would trust Iran to uphold its agreements.”

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DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday a recent missile trial launch was not intended to send a message to new U.S. President Donald Trump and to test him, since after a series of policy statements Iranian officials already "know him quite well".

Iran test-fired a new ballistic missile last week, prompting Washington to impose some new sanctions on Tehran. Trump tweeted that Tehran, which has cut back its nuclear program under a 2015 deal with world powers easing economic sanctions, was "playing with fire".

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted by Tasnim news agency as saying: "Iran's missile test was not a message to the new U.S. government.

"There is no need to test Mr Trump as we have heard his views on different issues in recent days... We know him quite well."

Iran has test-fired several ballistic missiles since the 2015 deal, but the latest test on January 29 was the first since Trump entered the White House. Trump said during his election campaign that he would stop Iran's missile program.

Qasemi said The U.S. government was "still in an unstable stage" and Trump's comments were "contradictory".

"We are waiting to see how the U.S. government will act in different international issues to evaluate their approach."

Despite heated words between Tehran and Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Saturday he was not considering strengthening U.S. forces in the Middle East to address Iran's "misbehavior".

Hamid Aboutalebi, deputy chief of staff of Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, tweeted on Monday that the U.S. government "should de-escalate regional tension not adding to it", and Washington should "interact with Iran" rather than challenging it.

Iran announced on Saturday that it will issue visas for a U.S. wrestling team to attend the Freestyle World Cup competition, reversing a decision to ban visas for the team in retaliation for an executive order by Trump banning visas for Iranians. 

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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The SM-3 Block IIA Interceptor Missile was designed to intercept and destroy other missiles. Watch its first intercept test as another missile was launched from Hawaii that the SM-3 was able to track and destroy.

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President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered an abrupt joint statement Saturday night, addressing reports that North Korea test fired a ballistic missile into its eastern sea.

"I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100%," Trump said.

In his remarks, Abe called the launch "absolutely intolerable."

Trump and Abe made their remarks from Mar-a-Lago, Trump's estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and did not take questions from reporters.

The launch was North Korea's first such test of the year and an implicit challenge to Trump's new administration. But details of the launch, including the type of missile, were scant.

There was no immediate confirmation from the North, which had recently warned it is ready to test its first intercontinental ballistic missile. The reports come as Trump was hosting Abe and just days before the North is to mark the birthday of leader Kim Jong Un's late father, Kim Jong Il.

Trump ignored a shouted question about the developing situation as he, Abe and their wives posed for photos before heading to dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. In Washington, public affairs officers for the Defense Department and the State Department had no immediate comment on the report.

The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the projectile was fired from around Banghyon, North Pyongan Province, which is where South Korean officials have said the North test launched its powerful midrange Musudan missile on Oct. 15 and 20.

The South's Yonhap news agency quoted an anonymous military source saying the missile flew about 500 kilometers (310 miles). But Yonhap reported that while determinations are still being made, it was not believed to be an ICBM.

The missile is believed to have splashed down into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters the missile did not hit Japanese territorial seas. The North conducted two nuclear tests and a slew of rocket launches last year in continued efforts to expand its nuclear weapons and missile programs. Kim Jong Un said in his New Year's address that the country has reached the final stages of readiness to test an ICBM, which would be a major step forward in its efforts to build a credible nuclear threat to the United States.

Though Pyongyang has been relatively quiet about the transfer of power to the Trump administration, its state media has repeatedly called for Washington to abandon its "hostile policy" and vowed to continue its nuclear and missile development programs until the U.S. changes its diplomatic approach.

Just days ago, it also reaffirmed its plan to conduct more space launches, which it staunchly defends but which have been criticized because they involve duel use technology that can be transferred to improve missiles.

Kim Dong-yeop, an analyst at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, speculated the projectile could be a Musudan or a similar rocket designed to test engines for an intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit the U.S. mainland. Analysts are divided, however, over how close the North is to having a reliable long-range rocket that could be coupled with a nuclear warhead capable to striking U.S. targets.

___

Associated Press writer Kim Tong-Hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

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BONN, Germany (Reuters) - The United States, South Korea and Japan on Thursday issued a joint statement condemning North Korea's test firing of a ballistic missile and saying Pyongyang should face an "even stronger" international response for violating U.N. resolutions.

The statement, which also condemned Pyongyang's human rights abuses, was released after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, on the sidelines of a meeting of G20 foreign ministers.

"The ministers condemned in the strongest terms North Korea’s February 12, 2017 ballistic missile test, noting North Korea’s flagrant disregard for multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions that expressly prohibit its ballistic missile and nuclear programs," the statement said.

North Korea on Wednesday rejected a U.N. Security Council statement denouncing its missile launch on Sunday and said it was a sovereign right and a self-defense measure.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Madeline Chambers)

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ADEN (Reuters) - Yemen's deputy chief of staff was killed on Wednesday when the armed Houthi movement battling government forces fired a ballistic missile at an army camp on the Red Sea coast, according to a military source.

The attack killing Major General Ahmed Saif al-Yafei was a blow to Yemeni government forces and hit outside the strategic coastal city of al-Mokha, which they captured from the Iran-allied Houthis last month.

A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen's civil war nearly two years ago to back President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after he was ousted from the capital Sanaa by Houthi forces.

"Major General Ahmed Saif al-Yafei was killed along with several others when the missile hit the camp near al-Mokha city early this morning," the military source, who is also a member of the general's family, told Reuters.

Saudi-owned Arabiya TV also reported Yafei's death.

Al-Mokha lies close to the Bab al-Mandab strait through which much of the world's oil passes. 

(Reporting by Mohamed Mukashaf; Writing by Tom Finn; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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North Korea’s state-run media announced its latest missile launches were conducted to practice hitting US military bases in Japan, according to The Washington Post on Tuesday.

"If the United States or South Korea fires even a single flame inside North Korean territory, we will demolish the origin of the invasion and provocation with a nuclear tipped missile," a Korean Central News Agency statement read.

Three of the four ballistic missiles fired Monday morning flew 600 miles and landed in the sea in Japan’s exclusive economic zone. The other missile landed outside the zone.

Studying the photos provided by North Korea, analysts at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies deduced that the missiles were extended-range Scuds. Having tested these missiles in the past, Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute, claimed that North Korea's test was not to see whether they could operate but to assess how fast units could deploy them.

"They want to know if they can get these missiles out into the field rapidly and deploy them all at once," Lewis told The Post. "They are practicing launching a nuclear-armed missile and hitting targets in Japan as if this was a real war."

The extended-range Scud missiles could be produced more cheaply than other medium-range missiles in the Hermit Kingdom’s arsenal, according to Lewis. This could be disastrous for allied nations, such as Japan and South Korea, not only because North Korea could release a barrage of these missiles, but the rate at which they could be fired can be difficult to counter, even with the US's defensive systems. 

One of these defensive systems, the antimissile battery system, known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), was deployed on Monday night in Osan Air Base, less than 300 miles from the missile launch location.

"Continued provocative actions by North Korea, to include yesterday's launch of multiple missiles, only confirm the prudence of our alliance decision last year to deploy THAAD to South Korea," said Adm. Harry Harris, commander of US Pacific Command, in a news release.

Designed to shoot incoming missiles, THAAD has been compared to shooting a bullet with another bullet. However, analysts say that the system would have difficulty in intercepting missiles launched simultaneously — as in Monday’s test.

According to a KCNA statement translated by KCNA Watch, Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, supervised the launches from the Hwasong artillery units, who are "tasked to strike the bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in Japan in contingency."

The launches came shortly after an annual series of US-South Korea military exercises that kicked off earlier this month. The ground, air, naval, and special-operations exercises, which consist of 17,000 US troops and THAAD systems, was predicted by scholars to be met with some retaliatory measures by North Korea. 

"In spite of the repeated warnings from [North Korea], the United States kicked off this month the largest-ever joint military exercise with South Korea,” said North Korean diplomat Ju Yong Choi during a UN-sponsored conference in Geneva on Tuesday, according to Reuters. "The annual, joint military exercise is a typical expression of US hostile policy towards the DPRK, and a major cause of escalation of the tension, that might turn into actual war."

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Rattled by North Korean military advances, influential Japanese lawmakers are pushing harder for Japan to develop the ability to strike preemptively at the missile facilities of its nuclear-armed neighbor.

Japan has so far avoided taking the controversial and costly step of acquiring bombers or weapons such as cruise missiles with enough range to strike other countries, relying instead on its U.S. ally to take the fight to its enemies.

But the growing threat posed by Pyongyang, including Monday's simultaneous launch of four rockets, is adding weight to an argument that aiming for the archer rather than his arrows is a more effective defense.

"If bombers attacked us or warships bombarded us, we would fire back. Striking a country lobbing missiles at us is no different," said Itsunori Onodera, a former defense minister who heads a ruling Liberal Democratic Party committee looking at how Japan can defend against the North Korean missile threat. "Technology has advanced and the nature of conflict has changed."

For decades, Japan has been stretching the limits of its post-war, pacifist constitution. Successive governments have said Tokyo has the right to attack enemy bases overseas when the enemy's intention to attack Japan is evident, the threat is imminent and there are no other defense options.

But while previous administrations shied away from acquiring the hardware to do so, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's LDP has been urging him to consider the step.

"It is time we acquired the capability," said Hiroshi Imazu, the chairman of the LDP's policy council on security. "I don’t know whether that would be with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or even the F-35 (fighter bomber), but without a deterrence North Korea will see us as weak."

The idea has faced stiff resistance in the past but the latest round of North Korean tests means Japan may move more swiftly to enact a tougher defense policy.

“We have already done the ground work on how we could acquire a strike capability,” said a source with knowledge of Japan's military planning. He asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Any weapon Japan acquired with the reach to hit North Korea would also put parts of China's eastern seaboard within range of Japanese munitions for the first time. That would likely anger Beijing, which is strongly protesting the deployment of the advanced U.S. Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea.

"China has missiles that can hit Japan, so any complaints it may have are not likely to garner much sympathy in the international community," said Onodera.

 Growing Threats

Currently, more than three missiles at one would be too many for Japan's already stretched ballistic missile defense to cope with, another source familiar with Japan’s capability said.

One serious concern for Japan is North Korea's development of solid fuel systems demonstrated last month that will allow it to conceal preparations for missile strikes because it no longer needs fuel its missiles just prior to firing.

That test also demonstrated a cold launch, with the rocket ejected from its launcher before engine ignition, minimizing damage to the mobile launch pads. Japanese officials also noted that the launch truck was equipped with tracks rather than wheels, allowing it to hide off road.

North Korea says its weapons are needed to defend against the threat of attack from the United States and South Korea, which it is still technically at war with.

Japan is already improving its ballistic missile defenses with longer-range, more accurate sea-based missiles on Aegis destroyers in the Sea of Japan and from next month will start a $1 billion upgrade of its ground-based PAC-3 Patriot batteries.

Also under consideration is a land-based version of the Aegis system or the THAAD system.

Those changes, however, will take years to complete and may not be enough to keep pace with rocket technology advances by Pyongyang, the sources said.

A quicker option would be for Japan to deploy ground-to-ground missiles to defend against an attack on its Yonaguni island near Taiwan fired from bases on Japanese territory several hundred kilometers to the east.

A missile with that range could also hit sites in North Korea.

Japan could also buy precision air launched missiles such as Lockheed Martin Corp's extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) or the shorter-range Joint Strike missile designed by Norway's Kongsberg Defence Aerospace AS for the F-35 fighter jet.

But with limited capability to track mobile launchers, some Japanese officials still fear any strike would leave North Korea with enough rockets to retaliate with a mass attack.

"A strike could be justified as self defense, but we have to consider the response that could provoke," said another LDP lawmaker, who asked not to be identified.

(Editing by Lincoln Feast)

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A US ally reportedly used a Patriot missile to shoot down a drone aircraft worth just a few hundred dollars, according to a US Army general.

Gen. David Perkins, commander of the Army Training and Doctrine Command, related the incident to an audience at an Association of the US Army meeting in Huntsville, Alabama, on March 13.

Perkins relayed the anecdote when his remarks turned to how address threats at different levels of command.

"When we started first dealing with enemy unmanned aerial systems, the gut instinct was that’s an air-defense problem. That's an air-defense problem because they’re in the air," he said, adding:

"And, in fact, we have a very close ally of ours that was dealing with an adversary that was using the small, quadcopter UASes, and they shot it down with a Patriot missile. Now that worked. They got it, OK, and we love Patriot missiles, and I know those folks out there that build them and sell them and they’re great. They’re a high-demand, low-density item."

"The problem is on the kinetic-exchange ratio, the Patriot won. That quadcopter that cost $200 from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot. So on the kinetic-exchange ratio they won."

Radar-guided Patriots are intended to intercept other missiles, which would theoretically make them suitable for small, nimble targets like drones. But a single missile can cost between $2.5 million and $3.4 million.

As Perkins noted, the disparity between the price of the Patriot and the price of the drone calls the overall wisdom of the tactic into question.

"On the economic-exchange ratio, I’m not sure that’s a good economic-exchange ratio," he told the audience. "In fact, if I’m the enemy, I’m thinking, 'Hey, I'm just going to get on Ebay and buy as many of these $300 quadcopters as I can and expend all the Patriot missiles out there.'"

Perkins did not elaborate on the "ally" who launched the strike, its location, or the circumstances around the engagement.

Thirteen countries currently have Patriot air-defense systems, according to Jane's. A 2012 BBC report indicated that Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates were among those countries.

Drones have proliferated in recent years, and ISIS fighters have put them to use in their fight with Iraqi forces in Mosul, where they've used them to drop grenades on government forces and track and record suicide attacks. Drone recordings have become a feature the terror group's propaganda effort.

In an apparent acknowledgement of the challenge drones pose, the US Air Force recently ordered net-filled shotgun shells for use in taking them down.

A drone-on-Patriot-missile engagement also illustrates how warfare and conflict have evolved as technology becomes less expensive.

"It certainly exposes in very stark terms the challenge which militaries face in attempting to deal with the adaptation of cheap and readily available civilian technology with extremely expensive, high-end hardware designed for state-on-state warfare," Justin Bronk, a researcher at the United Royal Services Institute, told the BBC.

Bronk also noted that the Patriot's advanced radar systems may not be able to target small quadcopters or drones effectively.

Perkins said military officials had begun to look for more cost-effective countermeasures for unmanned aerial systems at different levels of command.

"So what we’ve done is look at it say this is a commander’s problem. This is not an air-defense problem. This is a commander’s problem," he said.

"We defined it from the very beginning, and now we’re looking at, hey, there’s ways to get after this with electronic warfare, with cyber. There’s all kinds of different ways that we could get to this."

You can see Perkins' entire talk here. His remarks about the Patriot-drone engagement start just before the 15-minute mark.

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