Pentagon: blast kills US service member outside Mosul
A U.S. service member in Iraq was killed April 29 by an explosive device outside Mosul, according to a statement released by the Pentagon.
The Pentagon said the service member died from wounds sustained in an “explosive device blast,” stating further information would be released as appropriate.
The April 30 incident marks the second American military fatality since the start of the Mosul operation against the Islamic State group more than six months ago. In October, just days after the operation to retake Mosul was formally launched, Navy chief petty officer Jason C. Finan, 34, of Anaheim, Calif., died of wounds sustained in a roadside bomb attack north of Mosul.
Finan was part of a team of advisers assisting Iraq’s Kurdish fighters known as the Peshmerga.
The Pentagon has acknowledged more than 100 U.S. special operations forces are operating with Iraqi units in and around Mosul, with hundreds more playing a support role in staging bases farther from the front lines.
The service member killed Saturday is the fifth combat death in Iraq since the U.S. launched military operations against IS in August 2014. IS fighters began growing in power in Iraq in early 2014 in the country’s west and in the summer of 2014 swept across much of the country’s north.
Since the beginning of the U.S. campaign against IS in Iraq, the number of U.S. troops in the country has steadily grown.
There are now more U.S. forces in Iraq than any time since the 2011 U.S. withdrawal, marking an intensifying war as Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition work to push IS out of the last pockets of territory the extremists control in Iraq. AP
Trump: North Korea ‘disrespected’ China with missile test
President Donald Trump says North Korea “disrespected” China with its most recent ballistic missile test.
South Korea’s military said in a statement April 28 that North Korea had fired the missile from an area near the capital of Pyongyang, but provided no other details.
U.S. and South Korean officials say the launch apparently failed.
Trump did not answer reporters’ questions about the missile launch upon returning to the White House from a daytrip to Atlanta.
But he commented on Twitter, saying, “North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!” AP
Montenegro lawmakers back NATO membership in historic move
Montenegro’s parliament April 28 supported the Balkan country’s membership in NATO in a historic turn toward the West amid protests by Russia and the pro-Russia opposition.
Lawmakers voted 46-0 in the capital of Cetinje to ratify the accession treaty with the Western military alliance. They then stood up and applauded the decision.
The parliament has 81 members, but pro-Russia opposition lawmakers boycotted the session. Several hundred opposition supporters gathered outside the hall before the vote.
Montenegro has a small military of around 2,000 troops, but it is strategically positioned to give NATO full control over the Adriatic Sea. The other Adriatic nations — Albania, Croatia and Italy — already are in the alliance.
Russia has been angered by NATO’s expansion to Montenegro, which is in Moscow’s traditional area of interest.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry April 28 denounced the Montenegrin parliament’s ratification of NATO membership as “a demonstrative act of trampling all democratic norms and principles.”
The ministry took a dismissive swipe at the country’s size and military capability, saying that “given the potential of Montenegro, the North Atlantic alliance is unlikely to receive significant `added value.’” AP