South Korea says North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters, Pentagon raises death count in Iran war to 21, and Ukraine says Russia continues to strike its energy facilities amid claims of ceasefire.
1. North Korea on Monday fired multiple ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters, South Korea’s military said, adding to a recent streak of weapons demonstrations that has heightened tensions during a prolonged freeze in diplomacy. Jang Do-young, spokesperson of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said missiles of various types were fired from an area around the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, where the country’s main airport has been a major launch site in recent years. Jang said one of the missiles flew more than 900 kilometers (559 miles) before falling into the sea but didn’t comment on the flight details of the other weapons. The joint chiefs didn’t specify how many missiles it detected. Japan’s Deputy Defense Minister Takashi Koyari said Japan detected at least two missiles launched 17 minutes apart and that the weapons landed in waters outside of its exclusive economic zone.
2. The Pentagon on Friday updated the number of U.S. troops who have died during operations related to the war against Iran to 21. That total includes two more noncombat deaths from the previous update on the Pentagon’s reporting database, the Defense Casualty Analysis System. Additionally, 865 American service members have been wounded. According to the Washington Post, citing a U.S. official, the two deaths were Maj. Sorffly Davius, 46, an Army National Guard member who died in Kuwait on March 6, and an unidentified Navy suicide that occurred in September. Davius’s death had previously been reported but not included in the official toll.
3. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Russia has continued to strike Ukraine’s energy facilities even after U.S. President Donald Trump said a day earlier that the warring countries had agreed on an energy ceasefire in the 4 1/2-year-old war. Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland, Zelenskyy said Ukraine had learned through media reports that Trump had secured an energy ceasefire deal with Russia which would involve a mutual pause in strikes on energy sites. Zelenskyy said he would be willing to honor such an agreement, if Moscow did the same. “We support it, but I have not heard approval of this proposal from the Russian side,” Zelenskyy said. Trump’s brief social media post on Sunday claiming the purported agreement offered few details but said that the energy ceasefire took effect immediately, adding: “Do not break it!” On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t say whether Russia had agreed to such a ceasefire, saying only: “Contacts are ongoing.”
4. Over 700 family members of USS Arizona sailors who died in the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor will be on hand in Hawaii as the first caskets of 86 unknowns associated with the sunken ship are exhumed Dec. 7, the 85th anniversary of the attack. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency plans to disinter eight caskets at 6 a.m. from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, otherwise known as the Punchbowl, weather permitting, spokesman Sean Everette said in a statement this week. The disinterment will then be followed by a ceremony five hours later at Kilo Pier on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. An advocacy group called Operation 85 performed the genealogical research and spearheaded efforts to collect family reference DNA to make any identifications possible.
5. A projectile struck a passenger terminal at the international airport in Riyadh on Sunday, a day after a missile hit the same terminal and killed 12 people, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said. The Houthis claimed responsibility for those attacks and others. Saudi authorities said one person, described as a Pakistani national, was killed, and 11 were injured in the latest attack on the domestic terminal complex at King Khalid International Airport. The airport — struck four times in the past five days — has been closed since Saturday’s missile attack, which was the deadliest in a Gulf Arab nation since the Iran war began. Over 300 other people were wounded, some critically. The sharp escalation in the war’s new front threatens to draw in greater U.S. military involvement. President Donald Trump has said he is weighing joining the fight against the Houthis. There was no White House comment Sunday.
- Security