Biden vows U.S. ‘will respond’ after 3 troops killed in Jordan drone strike, Houthi rebels claim attack on U.S. Navy mobile base, Kim Jong Un supervises firing of new cruise missiles.
1. President Joe Biden said Sunday that the U.S. “shall respond” after three American troops were killed and dozens more were injured in an overnight drone strike in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border. Biden blamed Iran-backed militias for the first U.S. fatalities after months of strikes by such groups against American forces across the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
2. Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they attacked a U.S. Navy mobile base at sea Monday without offering evidence, something immediately rejected by an American defense official. Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the group fired a missile at the USS Lewis B. Puller in the Gulf of Aden. The Puller, which serves as a floating landing base, had been earlier stationed in the Arabian Sea as part of American efforts to curtail Houthi attacks on commercial shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
3. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised test-firings of new cruise missiles designed to be launched from submarines and also reviewed efforts to build a nuclear-powered submarine while reiterating his goal of building a nuclear-armed navy to counter what he portrays as growing external threats, state media said Monday.
4. Members of the House Armed Services Committee’s special panel on military quality of life issues will hold their first public hearing and one of their last formal events this week as the group begins to wrap up nearly a year of work on the topic. The bipartisan panel has held numerous roundtables out of the public’s eye with military families, advocates, and military officials to discuss problems and fixes they see among servicemembers. The group is expected to offer recommendations in coming weeks on a host of proposals to help military families, including new pay boosts, child care assistance and housing oversight.
5. The United States and Iraq held a first session of formal talks Saturday in Baghdad aimed at winding down the mission of a U.S.-led military coalition formed to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement that he had sponsored “the commencement of the first round of bilateral dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America to end the mission of the Coalition in Iraq."
- News