"Such a development is fraught with the most serious negative consequences for international and regional strategic stability," the statement read. "In the Asia-Pacific region, where an uneasy security situation already exists, a new, destructive factor has emerged that can further complicate the nuclear question and other problems on the Korean peninsula and provoke a regional arms race involving missiles."On Tuesday, the US Pacific Command announced the start of the THAAD deployment as the first components of the system arrived at Osan airbase in Pyeongtaek, South Korea.
Medical staff hunkered down in the hospital wards posted desperate messages for help on social media, with television footage showing some of them trapped on the ledge of a top-floor window.
Hospital administrators told AFP three gunmen wearing white laboratory coats began spraying bullets after a suicide bomber on foot blew himself up at the backdoor entrance, sparking chaos inside the 400-bed facility.
"I saw one of the attackers, armed with an AK-47 and dressed as a doctor, shooting at patients and guards on the third floor," hospital nurse Abdul Qadeer told AFP.
"They shot my friend but I managed to flee... I had to jump over the barbed wire to escape."
At least two other loud explosions -- including what the defence ministry called a car bomb in the hospital's parking lot -- were heard as Afghan special forces launched a clearance operation that lasted around six hours.
The attackers were gunned down after special forces landed on the roof of the hospital in a military helicopter.
The Taliban said they were not behind the raid and are known to distance itself from attacks on medical facilities or those that result in high civilian casualties.
"If the Self-Defense Forces don't leave Manbij we will deliver a strike against them. We have openly stated this. If Russia comes in support of the Self-Defense Forces in Manbij or in other place, it will become a problem for us," the foreign minister stressed.He's talking about violently removing Kurdish forces backed by Washington and Moscow from Manbij. This is how crazy Ankara has become. (And there has already been sporadic fighting between Turkish-backed "moderate" rebels and Kurdish forces around Manbij.)
Comment: Yet another birth certificate for Obama...eight years in the revelation? Malik could have come forth long ago. That he didn't may lead credence to the hushed Muslim-connection innuendo always in the background during Obama's years in office, family ties to organizations not-American and the great divide between the brothers. Is this certificate a "step" in the right direction? Perhaps the die (dye) has been cast and footprints don't lie.
See also: