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Nuclear or Conventional what are the risks

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The threat of nuclear war fills people with fear. Yet the increasingly blurred line between nuclear and conventional weapons is heightening the danger.

Nuclear and non-nuclear weapons have never been entirely separate from each other.

The B-29 bomber, for example, was designed and built to deliver conventional bombs. But on 6 August 1945 one of these aircraft, Enola Gay, dropped a nuclear weapon on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

Seventy-four years later, nine countries now possess thousands of nuclear weapons, which are becoming increasingly entangled with non-nuclear weapons.

The global stockpile of nuclear weapons is down from an all-time high of about 64,000 in 1986 - but some contemporary weapons are about 300 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Apart from the UK, all nuclear-armed states possess dual-use weapons that can be used to deliver nuclear or conventional warheads.

These include missiles of ever-longer ranges.

Russia, for example, has recently deployed a new ground-launched cruise missile, the 9M729.

The US believes this missile is dual-use and has been tested to distances "well over" 500km (310 miles).

The missile is at the heart of US claims Russia breached the terms of a treaty banning the use of medium- and intermediate-range missiles.

The US has announced its withdrawal from the pact, raising concerns about a new arms race.

China, meanwhile, has recently been showing off its newest missile, the DF-26.

Capable of travelling more than 2,500km (1,553 miles), it appears to be the world's longest range dual-use missile capable of a precision strike.

There are a number of scenarios in which such missiles could inadvertently increase the chance of a nuclear war.

The most obvious is that in a conflict, they might be launched with conventional warheads but mistaken for nuclear weapons.

This ambiguity could prompt the adversary to launch an immediate nuclear response.

It is difficult to know whether it would choose this course of action - or wait until the weapons had detonated and it became clear how they were armed.

In practice, the greatest danger with dual-use missiles may lie elsewhere: misidentification before they have even been launched.

Imagine that China dispersed lorry-mounted DF-26 missiles loaded with nuclear warheads around its territory.

The US, wrongly believing them to be conventionally armed, might decide to try to destroy them.

By attacking them, it could inadvertently provoke China into launching those nuclear weapons it still had before they could be destroyed.

Satellite systems

Dual-use missiles are not the only way in which nuclear and non-nuclear weapons are increasingly entangled.

For example, all nuclear forces need a communication system - which could include satellites.

But, increasingly, these nuclear command-and-control systems are also being used to support non-nuclear operations.

The US, for example, operates satellites to provide warning of attacks with nuclear-armed or conventionally armed ballistic missiles.

In a conflict between Nato and Russia, these could be used to detect short-range conventional ballistic missiles launched by Russia - as the first step towards shooting them down.

If this strategy was successful, Russia could decide to attack the US early-warning satellites in response.

In fact, the US intelligence community has warned that Russia is developing ground-based laser weapons for that exact purpose.

But blinding US early-warning satellites would not simply undermine its ability to spot conventionally armed missiles.

It would also compromise the ability of the US to detect nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and could raise fears that Russia was planning a nuclear attack on the US.

Indeed, the latest US Nuclear Posture Review - the key official statement of US nuclear policy - explicitly threatens to consider the use of nuclear weapons against any state that attacks its nuclear command-and-control systems.

This threat applies whether or not that state has used nuclear weapons first.
More stories like this
Weapons ban

The governments of nuclear-armed states are presumably aware of the growing entanglement between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.

They are also aware of at least some of the associated dangers.

However, working to reduce these risks does not seem to be a priority.

The focus remains on enhancing their military capabilities, to deter one another.

One option could be for countries to try to agree a ban on weapons that could threaten nuclear command-and-control satellites.

But for the moment, governments of nuclear-armed states are reluctant to sit around the same table.

As a result, the prospects of such cooperation appear to be bleak.
About this piece
This analysis piece was commissioned by the BBC from an expert working for an outside organisation.

James Acton is a co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This piece is based on Escalation through Entanglement: How the Vulnerability of Command-and-Control Systems Raises the Risks of an Inadvertent Nuclear War. You can follow him on Twitter here.

Edited by Duncan Walker

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The weapons making nuclear war more likely

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The threat of nuclear war fills people with fear. Yet the increasingly blurred line between nuclear and conventional weapons is heightening the danger. Nuclear and non-nuclear weapons have never been entirely separate from each other. The B-29 bomber, for example, was designed and built to deliver conventional bombs.

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Video

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Korea

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20th century battlefields series afghanistan war peter snow - Bing video

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Peter Snow Election With Dan Snow Peter and Battlefields Peter and Dan Snow 20th Century 20th Century Battlefields Middle East Part 3 6 Stacie Peters Snow Battlefield Britain Peter Snow BBC Peter Snow Chess Academy Dan Snow 20th Century Battlefields Gulf War 20th Century Battlefields Middle East 20th Century Battlefields Midway

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CNN Cold War Documentary The Cold War Part 1 Cold War TV Series The Cold War Documentary Ep 4 CNN Cold War Series Cold War Movies Korean War Documentary Cold War CNN Iron Curtain Cold War 1945-1989 Documentary The Vietnam War Documentary HD Cold War Documentary History Channel The Cold War Comrades Cold War Documentary On Ice Cold War Doc

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BBC World Service - The Documentary, The Secret War On Terror, Episode 2

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Is the West winning the war on terror and are we any safer from attacks?

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BBC World Service - The Documentary, The Secret War On Terror, Episode 2

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Is the West winning the war on terror and are we any safer from attacks?

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short explanation

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What Started the Ukraine Crisis Eurozone Crisis Explained US War in Ukraine Will Enter Ukraine Crisis Summary Washington Post Ukraine Crisis Russia and Ukraine Conflict Explained Ukraine Explained Funny Animated Ukraine Crisis Declare Independence Ukraine Crisis Funny Animated Ukraine Crisis YouTube News Ukraine Crisis YouTube News Ukraine

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The new cold war

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Videos Russian Troops in Crimea Crimea Beach War in Crimea Crimea Crisis Explained Board Up Military Crimea Russia World War 3 Crimea Russia Invade Ukraine Crimea Crimea Conflict Crimea Crisis VICE News Crimea News Crimea Crisis Riots Crimea Russian Bases Map Crimea War World 2 Crimean Crisis Recap Russia Crisis Ukraine Crisis Criema Crisis

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Conflict from demos to civil war.

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Adventurer and journalist Simon Reeve explores Colombia at a pivotal point in its history.

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Historical analysis of Diplomacy in Causes of the Cold War. Causes of the Cold War through the lens of Diplomacy

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Telegraph

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British forces are set to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. If 2015 is a year of peace for the UK, it will be the first for at least 100 years. Here the Guardian charts every conflict in which British forces have engaged since 1914

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British forces are set to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. If 2015 is a year of peace for the UK, it will be the first for at least 100 years. Here the Guardian charts every conflict in which British forces have engaged since 1914

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Battlefield series

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Peter and Dan Snow 20th Century Battlefields: 1973 Middle East 6/8

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Peter and Dan Snow unpick the complex history of conflict in the Middle East. Known in the West as the Yom Kippur War, the fighting that broke out in 1973 was the biggest military clash between Arabic nations and Israel.

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Battlefields series

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20th Century Battlefields- Episode 8- 1991 Gulf War

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Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

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Our last sovereign battle

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Special Air Service (SAS) - The Falklands Campaign

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Special Air Service (SAS) - The Falklands Conflict When Argentina invaded the Falklands in April, 1982, Britain dispatched a large Naval Task Force to recapture the Falklands. Steaming south with the British fleet were D and G Squadron of the SAS, with supporting signals units.

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20th century battlefields

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20th Century Battlefields- Episode 7- 1982 Falklands

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History of conflict

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From CBBC

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Iraq is a country in the Middle East that has been in the news for many years because of fighting there.

Now it is being talked about a lot again, because there is a battle taking place over a city called Mosul.

Mosul is currently under the control of a group that calls itself Islamic State (IS), but Iraqi soldiers want to take it back off them.

IS have extreme religious beliefs and use brutal violence against anyone who doesn't agree with their views. They're trying to take control of areas of the Middle East, forcing people to live by very strict rules.

An army of around 50,000 troops is involved in the operation to take Mosul from the IS soldiers in the city.

The people battling against IS are made up of many different groups who all want to remove them from power. However, even though they are fighting together, some of the people in this group have different beliefs and disagree about how Iraq should be ruled. But they have joined together to fight IS.

Some countries around the world are also helping them.

The US government has said there could be as many as 5,000 IS soldiers in Mosul.

It is likely to take a long time for Iraq to win the city back from IS. But why is this fight significant? And where did all this conflict in Iraq come from?

Newsround explains where this situation started, who is involved, and what it means for the people who live in the country.

Where did it start?

The problems in Iraq have gone on for a long time.

Back in 2003, British and US troops went to war in Iraq to remove the leader of the country, Saddam Hussein, from power.

Leaders of these countries said at the time that this needed to happen because he was a dangerous man who treated the people in his country very badly. They also said they believed he was hiding extremely dangerous weapons.

Saddam Hussein was captured in 2003 and killed three years later.

The decision to go to war in Iraq was a controversial one. None of the dangerous weapons that the US and UK leaders said they believed Saddam Hussein had were ever found. This led to an investigation, which you can read about here.

Removing Iraq's leader from power was supposed to be quite a simple mission, but it turned into a long war that lasted eight years.

This was because after Saddam Hussein was no longer in charge, there were many people fighting for power in the country.

In 2009, British forces stopped fighting there and the US followed by the end of 2011. More than 4,500 US troops died in the Iraq war and 179 UK soldiers lost their lives.

Why did the fighting not stop after the Iraq war?

Everybody hoped that Iraq would be able to recover on its own after the conflict. However, this didn't happen.

Most people in Iraq are Muslim, but they belong to different types of the religion. Some are Shia Muslims and some are Sunni Muslims. These two groups disagree about how the country should be run.

The government in Iraq is Shia, while IS soldiers claim to be Sunni Muslims - although other Sunni Muslims around the world say IS fighters are not Muslims at all, because they are so violent.

While Sunnis and Shias fought over who would be in charge, IS also wanted power, so the group started to gain control and captured many parts of the country.

Because of this, the fighting in Iraq continues, even though British and US troops have left.

What is Islamic State?

IS was formed in Iraq after British and US troops invaded the country in 2003. It actually grew from another extremist group called al-Qaeda, which has existed since the end of the 1980s.

When the foreign soldiers left Iraq, IS made the most of the chaos in the country and started to try to take over.

They didn't just do this in Iraq, but also in other areas too, like Syria.

In 2014, IS took over large parts of north and west Iraq, including the city of Mosul. After capturing Mosul, their leader made an announcement that every Muslim should follow his rules.

This told the rest of the world just how serious IS was about gaining a lot of power. Then people from around the world, including the UK, went to join IS.

When IS started to kill and capture thousands of members of a religious group called Yazidis, the US and many other countries launched airstrikes against them in Iraq in August 2014, to try to stop them.

But the group is still in power in places like Mosul, so the fight to stop them continues.

Why is Mosul so important?

The fight for who controls the city of Mosul is important for a number of reasons.

Mosul is the second largest city in the country. Being able to take it over showed the world how IS was able to take power when they wanted to.

Now it is the last main city in Iraq that IS are still in control of, so taking it off them would be a big sign that they are losing their power.

It would also be significant because Mosul was the city where they said every Muslim should follow their rules.

There was outrage all over the world when IS started to destroy important historical places in Mosul that could never be replaced, like shrines, tombs and religious buildings that have existed for hundreds of years.

Regaining this city would mean a lot to the people who have watched their city destroyed by IS.

What's the impact been on people there?

Whenever there is a war or violent fighting anywhere in the world, ordinary people usually get caught up in the conflict.

They are forced to flee their homes, families get separated, and people don't have enough to eat or somewhere safe to live. The conflict in Iraq has been no different.

Many families and children have found their lives turned upside down.

The United Nations (UN), the international group of countries that work together for peace, believes that more than 3 million people in Iraq have been forced to leave their homes to escape the fighting with IS.

It is worried that the current battle for Mosul may force another million people to become refugees too. Many more may get caught up in the fighting and run the risk of being killed.

The UN thinks that up to 100,000 people may try to escape to countries like Turkey and Syria, where there is also fighting.

The exact number of people who have been killed in the fighting in Iraq is not known. However, the UN thinks more than 23,600 ordinary people have been killed there since January 2014.

How does the future look?

The battle for Mosul is likely to take a long time.

Even once the fight is over, and even if IS lose control of Mosul, there is still a long way to go before they have all of their power taken off them.

Most people in Iraq are hoping for peace one day and to be able to rebuild their lives.

But the different groups in Iraq still need to agree on who should be in power, and they need to stop fighting between them before there can be peace in this country.

If you're upset by this story, or anything in the news, you can find advice here.

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Iraq is a country in the Middle East that has been in the news for many years because of fighting there. Now it is being talked about a lot again, because there is a battle taking place over a city called Mosul.

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Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Afghanistan War, international conflict in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 that was triggered by the September 11 attacks and consisted of three phases. The first phase-toppling the Taliban (the ultraconservative political and religious faction that ruled Afghanistan and provided sanctuary for al-Qaeda, perpetrators of the September 11 attacks)-was brief, lasting just two months. The second phase, from 2002 until 2008, was marked by a U.S. strategy of defeating the Taliban militarily and rebuilding core institutions of the Afghan state. The third phase, a turn to classic counterinsurgency doctrine, began in 2008 and accelerated with U.S. Pres. Barack Obama's 2009 decision to temporarily increase the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. The larger force was used to implement a strategy of protecting the population from Taliban attacks and supporting efforts to reintegrate insurgents into Afghan society. The strategy came coupled with a timetable for the withdrawal of the foreign forces from Afghanistan; beginning in 2011, security responsibilities would be gradually handed over to the Afghan military and police. The new approach largely failed to achieve its aims. Insurgent attacks and civilian casualties remained stubbornly high, while many of the Afghan military and police units taking over security duties appeared to be ill-prepared to hold off the Taliban. By the time the U.S. and NATO combat mission formally ended in December 2014, the 13-year Afghanistan War had become the longest war ever fought by the United States. American military casualties included some 2,400 service members killed and some 20,700 others wounded.

Prelude to the September 11 attacks

The joint U.S. and British invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 was preceded by over two decades of war in Afghanistan ( see Afghan War). On December 24, 1979, Soviet tanks rumbled across the Amu Darya River and into Afghanistan, ostensibly to restore stability following a coup that brought to power a pair of Marxist-Leninist political groups-the People's (Khalq) Party and the Banner (Parcham) Party. But the Soviet presence touched off a nationwide rebellion by fighters-known as the mujahideen-who drew upon Islam as a uniting source of inspiration. These fighters won extensive covert backing from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States and were joined in their fight by foreign volunteers (who soon formed a network, known as al-Qaeda, to coordinate their efforts). The guerrilla war against the Soviet forces led to their departure in 1989. In the Soviets' absence, the mujahideen ousted Afghanistan's Soviet-backed government and established a transitional government.

The mujahideen were politically fragmented, however, and in 1994 armed conflict escalated. The Taliban emerged and in 1996 seized Kabul. It instituted a severe interpretation of Islamic law that, for example, forbade female education and prescribed the severing of hands, or even execution, as punishment for petty crimes. That same year, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was welcomed to Afghanistan (having been expelled from Sudan) and established his organization's headquarters there. With al-Qaeda's help, the Taliban won control of over 90 percent of Afghan territory by the summer of 2001. On September 9 of that year, al-Qaeda hit men carried out the assassination of famed mujahideen leader Ahmad Shah Masoud, who at the time was leading the Northern Alliance (a loose coalition of mujahideen militias that maintained control of a small section of northern Afghanistan) as it battled the Taliban and who had unsuccessfully sought greater U.S. backing for his efforts.

The September 11 attacks and the U.S.-British invasion

The hijacking and crashing of four U.S. jetliners on September 11, 2001, brought instant attention to Afghanistan. The plot had been hatched by al-Qaeda, and some of the 19 hijackers had trained in Afghanistan. In the aftermath of the attacks, the administration of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush coalesced around a strategy of first ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan and dismantling al-Qaeda, though others contemplated actions in Iraq, including long-standing plans for toppling Pres. Saddam Hussein. Bush demanded that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar "deliver to [the] United States authorities all the leaders of al-Qaeda who hide in your land," and when Omar refused, U.S. officials began implementing a plan for war.

The campaign in Afghanistan started covertly on September 26, with a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) team known as Jawbreaker arriving in the country and, working with anti-Taliban allies, initiating a strategy for overthrowing the regime. U.S. officials hoped that by partnering with the Afghans they could avoid deploying a large force to Afghanistan. Pentagon officials were especially concerned that the United States not be drawn into a protracted occupation of Afghanistan, as had occurred with the Soviets more than two decades prior. The United States relied primarily on the Northern Alliance, which had just lost Massoud but had regrouped under other commanders, including Tajik leader Mohammed Fahim and Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek. The Americans also teamed with anti-Taliban Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan, including a little-known tribal leader named Hamid Karzai.

The CIA team was soon joined by U.S. and British special forces contingents, and together they provided arms, equipment, and advice to the Afghans. They also helped coordinate targeting for the air campaign, which began on October 7, 2001, with U.S. and British war planes pounding Taliban targets, thus marking the public start of Operation Enduring Freedom. In late October, Northern Alliance forces began to overtake a series of towns formerly held by the Taliban. The forces worked with U.S. assistance, but they defied U.S. wishes when, on November 13, they marched into Kabul as the Taliban retreated without a fight.

Kandahar, the largest city in southern Afghanistan and the Taliban's spiritual home, fell on December 6, marking the end of Taliban power. It had been besieged by a force led by Karzai that moved in from the north and one commanded by Gul Agha Sherzai that advanced from the south; both operated with heavy assistance from the United States. As the Taliban leadership retreated into Afghanistan's rural areas and across the border to Pakistan, anti-Taliban figures convened at a United Nations (UN)-sponsored conference in Bonn, Germany. With behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the United States, Karzai was selected to lead the country on an interim basis.

An intensive manhunt for Omar, bin Laden, and al-Qaeda deputy chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was undertaken. Prior to the killing of bin Laden by U.S. forces in 2011 ( see below), the Americans were believed to have come closest to bin Laden in the December 2001 battle of Tora Bora (bin Laden's mountain stronghold). But bin Laden was thought to have managed to have slipped into Pakistan with the help of Afghan and Pakistani forces that were supposedly helping the Americans. Critics later questioned why the U.S. military had allowed Afghan forces to lead the assault on the cave complex at Tora Bora rather than doing it themselves. (Indeed, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry made this criticism repeatedly during the 2004 general election campaign.) Al-Qaeda subsequently reestablished its base of operations in the tribal areas that form Pakistan's northwest border with Afghanistan. Omar and his top Taliban lieutenants settled in and around the Pakistani city of Quetta, in the remote southwestern province of Balochistān. One of the final major battles of the first phase of the war came in March 2002 with Operation Anaconda in the eastern province of Paktia, which involved U.S. and Afghan forces fighting some 800 al-Qaeda and Taliban militants. The operation also marked the entrance of other countries' troops into the war: special operations forces from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, and Norway participated.

Iraq takes centre stage

With the ouster of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the international focus shifted to reconstruction and nation-building efforts in Afghanistan. In April 2002 Bush announced a " Marshall Plan" for Afghanistan in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute, promising substantial financial assistance. But from the start, development efforts in Afghanistan were inadequately funded, as attention had turned among U.S. officials to the looming confrontation in Iraq. Between 2001 and 2009, just over $38 billion in humanitarian and reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan was appropriated by the U.S. Congress. More than half the money went to training and equipping Afghan security forces, and the remainder represented a fraction of the amount that experts said would be required to develop a country that had consistently ranked near the bottom of global human development indices. The aid program was also bedeviled by waste and by confusion over whether civilian or military authorities had responsibility for leading education, health, agriculture, and other development projects.

Despite military commitments from dozens of U.S. allies, the United States initially argued against allowing the other foreign forces-operating as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)-to deploy beyond the Kabul area. That choice was directed by the Pentagon, which insisted on a "light footprint" out of concern that Afghanistan would become a drag on U.S. resources as attention shifted to Iraq ( see Iraq War). When ISAF did begin to venture beyond Kabul, its efforts were hampered by the "caveats" of its component countries-restrictions that kept all but a handful of the militaries from actively engaging in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The force, overseen by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the organization's first mission outside Europe, was also hamstrung by a lack of troops as international commitments to Afghanistan flagged.

The United States consistently represented the largest foreign force in Afghanistan, and it bore the heaviest losses. By spring 2010 more than 1,000 U.S. troops had been killed in Afghanistan, while the British troops suffered some 300 deaths and the Canadians some 150. Both Britain and Canada stationed their troops in Afghanistan's south, where fighting had been most intense. More than 20 other countries also lost troops during the war, though many-such as Germany and Italy-chose to focus their forces in the north and the west, where the insurgency was less potent. As the fighting dragged on and casualties escalated, the war lost popularity in many Western countries, creating domestic political pressure to keep troops out of harm's way or to pull them out altogether.

Initially, the war appeared to have been won with relative ease. On May 1, 2003, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced an end to "major combat" in Afghanistan. On the same day, aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, President Bush announced that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." At that time, there were 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The first democratic Afghan elections since the fall of the Taliban were held on October 9, 2004, with approximately 80 percent of registered voters turning out to give Karzai a full five-year term as president. Parliamentary elections were staged a year later, with dozens of women claiming seats set aside for them to ensure gender diversity. The 2004 constitution provided Afghanistan with a powerful central government and weak regional and local authorities-a structure that was in opposition to the country's long-standing traditions.

Despite vast powers under the constitution, Karzai was widely regarded as a weak leader who grew increasingly isolated as the war progressed. He survived several assassination attempts-including a September 2004 rocket attack that nearly struck a helicopter he was riding in-and security concerns kept him largely confined to the presidential palace in Kabul. Karzai's government was beset by corruption, and efforts to build a national army and a police force were troubled from the start by inadequate international support and ethnic differences between Afghans.

Beginning in 2005, violence climbed as the Taliban reasserted its presence with new tactics modeled on those being used by insurgents in Iraq. Whereas early in the war the Taliban had focused on battling U.S. and NATO forces in open combat-a strategy that largely failed to inflict significant damage-their adoption of the use of suicide bombings and buried bombs, known as IEDs ( improvised explosive devices), began to cause heavy casualties. Between January 2005 and August 2006, Afghanistan endured 64 suicide attacks-a tactic that had been virtually unknown in the country's history before then. At first the attacks caused relatively few casualties, but as training and the availability of high-powered explosives increased, the death toll began to climb: in one particularly vicious attack in November 2007, at least 70 people-many of them children-were killed as a parliamentary delegation visited the northern town of Baghlan. Less than a year later, a bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul killed more than 50; the Afghan government accused elements of Pakistan's intelligence service of complicity in the attack, a charge Pakistan denied.

The Taliban's resurgence corresponded with a rise in anti-American and anti-Western sentiment among Afghans. Those feelings were nurtured by the sluggish pace of reconstruction, allegations of prisoner abuse at U.S. detention facilities, widespread corruption in the Afghan government, and civilian casualties caused by U.S. and NATO bombings. In May 2006 a U.S. military vehicle crashed and killed several Afghans, an event that sparked violent anti-American riots in Kabul-the worst since the war began. Later that year NATO took command of the war across the country; American officials said that the United States would play a lesser role and that the face of the war would become increasingly international. This shift reflected the greater need for U.S. troops and resources in Iraq, where sectarian warfare was reaching alarming levels. By contrast, the war in Afghanistan was still regarded in Washington as a relative success.

For commanders on the ground in Afghanistan, however, it was apparent that the Taliban intended to escalate its campaign, launching more frequent attacks and intensifying its fund-raising from wealthy individuals and groups in the Persian Gulf. Another source of money was Afghanistan's resurgent opium industry. International pressure had forced the Taliban to curb poppy cultivation during their final year in power, but after their removal in 2001 the opium industry made a comeback, with revenues in some areas of the country benefiting the insurgency. Western-backed campaigns to eliminate poppy cultivation or to encourage farmers to grow other crops had little discernible impact; Afghanistan soon became the supplier of over 90 percent of the world's opium.

The United States, meanwhile, had had only limited success in killing or capturing Taliban commanders. In early 2007, Mullah Obaidullah Akhund-the Taliban's number three leader-was captured in Pakistan, and months later Mullah Dadullah-the Taliban's top military commander-was killed in fighting with U.S. forces. But those were the exceptions. Top insurgent leaders remained at large, many of them in the tribal regions of Pakistan that adjoin Afghanistan. This reality prompted the United States to begin targeting insurgent leaders who lived in Pakistan with missiles fired from remotely piloted drones. The CIA program of targeted killings was publicly denied by U.S. officials but was widely acknowledged in private. Pakistani officials in turn denounced the strikes in public but privately approved of them as long as civilian casualties were limited. The United States repeatedly threatened to expand its drone strikes beyond Pakistan's tribal areas and into regions such as Balochistān if Pakistan did not demonstrate greater cooperation in battling the Taliban, a group it had long fostered.

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Afghanistan War | History, Combatants, Facts, & Timeline

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Afghanistan War, international conflict beginning in 2001 that was triggered by the September 11 attacks. U.S. forces quickly toppled the Taliban (the faction that ruled Afghanistan and provided sanctuary for al-Qaeda) in the first months of the war, only to face years of insurgency led by a reconstituted Taliban.

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View from BB

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More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State. This is the story of the civil war so far, in eight short chapters.

1. Uprising turns violent

Pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011 in the southern city of Deraa after the arrest and torture of some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall. After security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing several, more took to the streets.

The unrest triggered nationwide protests demanding President Assad's resignation. The government's use of force to crush the dissent merely hardened the protesters' resolve. By July 2011, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets across the country.

Opposition supporters eventually began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel security forces from their local areas.

2. Descent into civil war

Violence escalated and the country descended into civil war as rebel brigades were formed to battle government forces for control of cities, towns and the countryside. Fighting reached the capital Damascus and second city of Aleppo in 2012.

By June 2013, the UN said 90,000 people had been killed in the conflict. By August 2015, that figure had climbed to 250,000, according to activists and the UN.

The conflict is now more than just a battle between those for or against Mr Assad. It has acquired sectarian overtones, pitching the country's Sunni majority against the president's Shia Alawite sect, and drawn in regional and world powers. The rise of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) has added a further dimension.

3. War crimes

A UN commission of inquiry has evidence that all parties to the conflict have committed war crimes - including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances. They have also been accused of using civilian suffering - such as blocking access to food, water and health services through sieges - as a method of war.

The UN Security Council has demanded all parties end the indiscriminate use of weapons in populated areas, but civilians continue to die in their thousands. Many have been killed by barrel bombs dropped by government aircraft on gatherings in rebel-held areas - attacks which the UN says may constitute massacres.

IS has also been accused by the UN of waging a campaign of terror. It has inflicted severe punishments on those who transgress or refuse to accept its rules, including hundreds of public executions and amputations. Its fighters have also carried out mass killings of rival armed groups, members of the security forces and religious minorities, and beheaded hostages, including several Westerners.

4. Chemical weapons

Hundreds of people were killed in August 2013 after rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin were fired at several suburbs of Damascus. Western powers said it could only have been carried out by Syria's government, but the government blamed rebel forces.

Facing the prospect of US military intervention, President Assad agreed to the complete removal and destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal.

The operation was completed the following year, but the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has continued to document the use of toxic chemicals in the conflict. Investigators found chlorine was used "systematically and repeatedly" in deadly attacks on rebel-held areas between April and July 2014.

IS has also been accused of using homemade chemical weapons, including sulphur mustard. The OPCW said the blister agent was used in an attack on the northern town of Marea in August 2015 that killed a baby.

5. Humanitarian crisis

More than 4.5 million people have fled Syria since the start of the conflict, most of them women and children. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history. About 10% of Syrian refugees have sought safety in Europe, sowing political divisions as countries argue over sharing the burden.

A further 6.5 million people are internally displaced inside Syria, 1.2 million were driven from their homes in 2015 alone.

The UN says it will need $3.2bn to help the 13.5 million people, including 6 million children, who will require some form of humanitarian assistance inside Syria in 2016. About 70% of the population is without access to adequate drinking water, one in three people are unable to meet their basic food needs, and more than 2 million children are out of school, and four out of five people live in poverty.

The warring parties have compounded the problems by refusing humanitarian agencies access to civilians in need. Up to 4.5 million people in Syria live in hard-to-reach areas, including nearly 400,000 people in 15 besieged locations who do not have access to life-saving aid.

6. Rebels and the rise of the jihadists

The armed rebellion has evolved significantly since its inception. Secular moderates are now outnumbered by Islamists and jihadists, whose brutal tactics have caused global outrage.

So-called Islamic State has capitalised on the chaos and taken control of large swathes of Syria and Iraq, where it proclaimed the creation of a "caliphate" in June 2014. Its many foreign fighters are involved in a "war within a war" in Syria, battling rebels and rival jihadists from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, as well as government and Kurdish forces.

In September 2014, a US-led coalition launched air strikes inside Syria in an effort to "degrade and ultimately destroy" IS. But the coalition has avoided attacks that might benefit Mr Assad's forces. Russia began an air campaign targeting "terrorists" in Syria a year later, but opposition activists say its strikes have mostly killed Western-backed rebels and civilians.

In the political arena, opposition groups are also deeply divided, with rival alliances battling for supremacy. The most prominent is the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, backed by several Western and Gulf Arab states. However, the exile group has little influence on the ground in Syria and its primacy is rejected by many opponents of Mr Assad.

7. Peace efforts

With neither side able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other, the international community long ago concluded that only a political solution could end the conflict in Syria. The UN Security Council has called for the implementation of the 2012 Geneva Communique, which envisages a transitional governing body with full executive powers "formed on the basis of mutual consent".

Talks in early 2014, known as Geneva II, broke down after only two rounds, with then-UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi blaming the Syrian government's refusal to discuss opposition demands.

Mr Brahimi's successor, Staffan de Mistura, focused on establishing a series of local ceasefires. His plan for a "freeze zone" in Aleppo was rejected, but a three-year siege of the Homs suburb of al-Wair was successfully brought to an end in December 2015.

At the same time, the conflict with IS lent fresh impetus to the search for a political solution in Syria. The US and Russia led efforts to get representatives of the government and the opposition to attend "proximity talks" in Geneva in January 2016 to discuss a Security Council-endorsed road map for peace, including a ceasefire and a transitional period ending with elections.

8. Proxy war

What began as another Arab Spring uprising against an autocratic ruler has mushroomed into a brutal proxy war that has drawn in regional and world powers.

Iran and Russia have propped up the Alawite-led government of President Assad and gradually increased their support. Tehran is believed to be spending billions of dollars a year to bolster Mr Assad, providing military advisers and subsidised weapons, as well as lines of credit and oil transfers. Russia has meanwhile launched an air campaign against Mr Assad's opponents.

The Syrian government has also enjoyed the support of Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement, whose fighters have provided important battlefield support since 2013.

The Sunni-dominated opposition has, meanwhile, attracted varying degrees of support from its international backers - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, along with the US, UK and France.

Until late 2015, rebel appeals for anti-aircraft weapons to stop devastating government air strikes were rejected by the US and its allies, amid concern that they might end up in the hands of jihadist militants. A US programme to train and arm 5,000 rebels to take the fight to IS on the ground also suffered a series of setbacks before being abandoned.
Produced by Lucy Rodgers, David Gritten, James Offer and Patrick Asare

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More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State.

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The view from Al Jazeera

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More than 465,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, over a million injured, and over 12 million - half the country's prewar population - have been displaced.

Here is how and why the conflict started:

What caused the uprising?

While lack of freedoms and economic woes drove resentment of the Syrian government, the harsh crackdown on protesters inflamed public anger.

Arab Spring: In 2011, successful uprisings - that became known as the Arab Spring - toppled Tunisia's and Egypt 's presidents. This gave hope to Syrian pro-democracy activists.

That March, peaceful protests erupted in Syria as well, after 15 boys were detained and tortured for writing graffiti in support of the Arab Spring. One of the boys, a 13-year-old, was killed after having been brutally tortured.

The Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded to the protests by killing hundreds of demonstrators and imprisoning many more.

In July 2011, defectors from the military announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group aiming to overthrow the government, and Syria began to slide into war.

While the protests in 2011 were mostly non-sectarian, the armed conflict surfaced starker sectarian divisions. Most Syrians are Sunni Muslims, but Syria's security establishment has long been dominated by members of the Alawi sect, of which Assad is a member.

In 1982, Bashar's father ordered a military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, killing tens of thousands of people and flattening much of the city.

Even global warming is said to have played a role in sparking the 2011 uprising. Severe drought plagued Syria from 2007-10, causing as many as 1.5 million people to migrate from the countryside into cities, exacerbating poverty and social unrest.

International involvement

Foreign backing and open intervention have played a large role in Syria's war. Russia entered the conflict in 2015 and has been the Assad government's main ally since then.

Regional actors: The governments of majority-Shia Iran and Iraq, and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, have supported Assad, while Sunni-majority countries, including Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia supported anti-Assad rebels.

Since 2016, Turkish troops have launched several operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) near its borders, as well as against Kurdish groups armed by the United States.

Anti-ISIL coalition: The US has armed anti-Assad rebel groups and led an international coalition bombing ISIL targets since 2014.

Israel carried out air raids inside Syria, reportedly targeting Hezbollah and pro-government fighters and facilities.

The first time Syrian air defences shot down an Israeli warplane was in February 2018.

US and Russia

The US has repeatedly stated its opposition to the Assad government backed by Russia but has not involved itself as deeply.

Chemical red line: Former US President Barack Obama had warned that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a "red line" that would prompt military intervention.

In April 2017, the US carried its first direct military action against Assad's forces, launching 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air force base from which US officials believe a chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun had been launched.

One year later, on April 14, despite Russian warnings, the US launched an attack together with France and the UK, at "chemical weapon sites".

CIA training: In 2013, the CIA began a covert programme to arm, fund and train rebel groups opposing Assad, but the programme was later shut down after it was revealed that the CIA had spent $500m but only trained 60 fighters.

Russia's campaign: In September 2015, Russia launched a bombing campaign against what it referred to as "terrorist groups" in Syria, which included ISIL as well as anti-Assad rebel groups backed by the USA. Russia has also deployed military advisers to shore up Assad's defences.

At the UN Security Council, Russia and China have repeatedly vetoed Western-backed resolutions on Syria.

Peace talks

Peace negotiations have been ongoing between the Syrian government and the opposition in order to achieve a military ceasefire and political transition in Syria, but the main sticking point has been the fate of Assad.

Geneva: The first round of UN-facilitated talks between the Syrian government and opposition delegates took place in Geneva, Switzerland in June 2012.

The latest round of talks in December 2017 failed amid a tit-for-tat between the Syrian government and opposition delegates over statements about the future role of Assad in a transitional government.

In 2014 Staffan de Mistura replaced Kofi Annan as the UN special envoy for Syria.

Astana: In May 2017, Russia, Iran and Turkey called for the setup of four de-escalation zones in Syria, over which Syrian and Russian fighter jets were not expected to fly.

After denouncing plans to partition Syria in March 2018, a follow-up trilateral summit was held in Turkey to discuss the way forward.

Sochi: In January 2018, Russia sponsored talks over the future of Syria in the Black Sea city of Sochi, but the opposition bloc boycotted the conference, claiming it was an attempt to undercut the UN effort to broker a deal.

Since the conflict began, as a Syrian rebellion against the Assad government, many new rebel groups have joined the fighting in Syria and have frequently fought one another.

In December 2016, the Syrian army scored its biggest victory against the rebels when it recaptured the strategic city of Aleppo. Since then, the FSA has controlled limited areas in northwestern Syria.

In 2018, Syrian opposition fighters evacuated from the last rebel stronghold near Damascus. However, backed by Turkey, the FSA took control Afrin, near the Turkey-Syria border, from Kurdish rebel fighters seeking self-rule.

emerged in northern and eastern Syria in 2013 after overrunning large portions of Iraq. The group quickly gained international notoriety for its brutal executions and its energetic use of social media to recruit fighters from around the world.

Other groups fighting in Syria include Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Iran-backed Hezbollah, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units ( YPG).

Fighting in Syria continues on several fronts:

Idlib: In February 2018, shelling by Russian and Syrian forces have intensified on Idlib, especially since fighters from the Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham group shot down a Russian warplane.

In April, Russia brokered a deal to evacuate opposition fighters from Eastern Ghouta in the south to Idlib in the north, Idlib being one of the few strongholds controlled by opposition fighters.

The province is strategically important for the Syrian government and Russia for its proximity to the Russian-operated Syrian Khmeimim airbase.

Homs: In April, an airbase and other Syrian government facilities in Homs became again the target of Israeli and US-led air strikes in which UK and French forces also participated.

The Syrian army recaptured the city of Homs in 2014, but fighting continues with rebels in the suburbs between Homs and Hama.

Turkey and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) began in January 2018 a military operation against US-backed fightersin northwestern Syria, and announced the capture of Afrin's city centre in March.

US troops are stationed in nearby Manbij, prompting fears of a US-Turkey confrontation.

Who is controling what in Syria? https://t.co/MlPM1aJf4Q pic.twitter.com/qz2dY2qvT0

- Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 3, 2018

Now having gone on longer than World War II, the war in Syria is causing profound effects beyond the country's borders, with many Syrians having left their homes to seek safety elsewhere in Syria or beyond.

Registered: As of February 2018, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) had registered over 5.5 million refugees from Syria and estimated that there are over 6.5 million internally displaced persons (IDP) within Syria's borders.

Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan are hosting most of the Syrian refugees, many of whom attempt to journey onwards to Europe in search of better conditions.

The 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees describes a refugee as any person who, "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country".

Returns: In 2017, about 66,000 refugees returned to Syria, according to reports.

According to a Turkish official, 140,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey returned home after Turkish military operations in 2017. More refugees may return to Afrin.

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Syria's war explained from the beginning

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On March 15, the war entered its eighth year.

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A North Korean missile has detonated soon after launch, South Korean and US military officials have said, a day after Pyongyang warned the US amid rising tension in the region.

The US said a ballistic missile exploded within seconds of launch.

Hours earlier, North Korea paraded what appeared to be long-range ballistic missiles at a major military display.

It has already conducted five nuclear tests and a series of missile launches in contravention of UN resolutions.

The latest development came as US Vice-President Mike Pence arrived in the South Korean capital, Seoul, where he was expected to discuss the best way to deal with North Korea's missile and nuclear programmes.

Mr Pence, beginning a long-planned 10-day Asia trip, his first official visit to the region, addressed US soldiers at an Easter service, telling them that the commitment to South Korea had "never been stronger".

The South Korean defence ministry said that "North Korea attempted to test an unidentified type of missile from [its eastern port of] Sinpo". It added that the launch on Sunday had "failed".

The US Pacific Command later confirmed the failed test, adding that it had detected and tracked what it believed to be a North Korean ballistic missile.

"The missile blew up almost immediately," said US Navy Commander Dave Benham, quoted by Reuters.

One unnamed US official said it was unlikely to have been an intercontinental (ICBM) missile, but investigations were continuing.

Ballistic missiles follow high trajectories and are initially powered and guided, but fall to their target under gravity. ICBMs follow a sub-orbital trajectory, others stay within the atmosphere.

Analysis: Stephen Evans, BBC News, Seoul

North Korea frequently tests missiles, in contravention of UN resolutions. The success rate has been improving but its record is still hit and miss. This failure underlines that Saturday's huge parade in Pyongyang of rows and rows of missiles of different types does not mean the country yet has an effective nuclear arsenal.

Recently, the US has reacted minimally to news of North Korean military exploits. This might be taken as "the time for words is over, now is the time for action". But what action?

The US is aware of the potential cost of attacking North Korea, given that Seoul is within easy range of North Korean artillery. And China would be unlikely to stand aside if an attempt were made to topple Kim Jong-un (though the US has said that regime change is not an aim).

So what action might President Trump take? Only he knows the answer to that - or perhaps he does not.

On Saturday, North Korea marked the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founding president, Kim Il-sung, with a huge military parade in Pyongyang amid speculation that current leader Kim Jong-un could order a new nuclear test.

The event appeared to include new intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

"North Korea showing a variety of offensive missiles at yesterday's military parade and daring to fire a ballistic missile today is a show of force that threatens the whole world," South Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Adding to the tension in the Korean peninsula, a US aircraft carrier group is steaming towards the region.

Washington has stepped up pressure on the isolated North, with President Donald Trump saying that the US is ready to act alone to deal with the nuclear threat.

At the parade on Saturday, North Korean military official Choe Ryong-hae, who is believed to be the country's second most powerful official, said that his country was "prepared to respond to an all-out war with an all-out war".

"We are ready to hit back with nuclear attacks of our own style against any nuclear attacks," he said.

North Korea has suffered test failures in the past but they have not deterred its development programme. Pyongyang resident Rim Chung-ryol told Reuters: "If the news is true, failure is the mother of success. We will make more efforts to make even more powerful weapons in the future."

North Korea's aim is to be able to put a nuclear warhead on an ICBM that can reach targets around the world.

Pyongyang has claimed to have miniaturised nuclear warheads for use on missiles, though experts have cast doubt on that given the lack of evidence.

The state is banned from any missile or nuclear tests by the UN, though it has repeatedly broken those sanctions.

Earlier this month, North Korea test-fired a medium-range ballistic missile from Sinpo into the Sea of Japan.

The launch took place on the eve of a visit by China's President Xi Jinping to the US to meet Mr Trump.

The two later discussed how to rein in North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.

On Friday, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned that the situation in the region was escalating, adding that "conflict could break out at any moment". Mr Wang said that if war occurred, there could be no winner.

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N Korea missile launch fails day after military parade - BBC News

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A North Korean missile has detonated soon after launch, South Korean and US military officials have said, a day after Pyongyang warned the US amid rising tension in the region. The US said a ballistic missile exploded within seconds of launch. Hours earlier, North Korea paraded what appeared to be long-range ballistic missiles at a major military display.

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What is behind troubles in this area?

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Lieutenant General HR McMaster said 'all our options are on the table' to try to 'avoid the worst

Frantic talks were taking place with allies including China to 'develop a range of options'

The US refused to rule out a pre-emptive strike on North Korea last night as Donald Trump's national security adviser warned the situation was 'coming to a head'.

After the rogue state ran a missile test that failed, Lieutenant General HR McMaster said 'all our options are on the table' to try to 'avoid the worst'.

Frantic talks were taking place with allies including China to 'develop a range of options' in an attempt to quell tensions and calm fears of thermo-nuclear war.

But, with a strike group of US forces already posted to the Korean Peninsula, the US President added further fuel to the fire, saying he had been forced to beef up his military. On Twitter, Mr Trump wrote: 'Our military is building and is rapidly becoming stronger than ever before. Frankly, we have no choice.'

Mr Trump and General McMaster said they hoped China would convince its neighbour, which depends on Beijing to prop up its trades and finances, to stop the crisis escalating.

On Saturday dictator Kim Jong-un's regime displayed its military muscle in a huge parade, before yesterday's missile test which exploded within seconds.

The medium-range missile - fired from a base in the Sinpo area - ended in farce because it 'blew up almost immediately', sources said. The US Pacific Command said it believed it to be a ballistic missile, which is initially powered and guided, but then uses gravity to fall to its target.

Experts said it was not an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which would be able to reach targets around the world. Kim's ultimate aim is to be able to put a nuclear warhead on an ICBM.

US Vice President Mike Pence, who had flown into South Korea yesterday, accused North Korea of 'provocation'.

He said the US was going to rebuild its military, 'restore the arsenal of democracy' and give troops the resources they needed to accomplish their mission. Evoking former president George W Bush's speeches on the eve of the Afghan and Iraq wars, Mr Pence said 'freedom will ever prevail'.

And Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson posted on Twitter: 'I strongly condemn the latest North Korean missile launch. They must stop these belligerent acts and comply with UN resolutions.'

General McMaster said the latest missile launch 'fits a pattern of provocative and destabilising and threatening behaviour on the part of the North Korean regime'.

In Afghan capital Kabul, he told ABC's This Week show: 'All our options are on the table, undergoing refinement and further development'. He said: 'The President has made clear that he will not accept the United States and its allies and partners in the region being under threat from this hostile regime with nuclear weapons.

'And so we're working together with our allies and partners, and with the Chinese leadership, to develop a range of options.'

He said the National Security Council was collaborating with the Pentagon, the State Department, and intelligence agencies to provide Mr Trump with options.

The General said it was the consensus of the US, along with allies in the region, that 'this problem is coming to a head'. He added: 'And so it's time for us to undertake all actions we can, short of a military option, to try to resolve this peacefully. In the coming weeks, months, I think there's a great opportunity for all of us... to take action short of armed conflict so we can avoid the worst.'

Beijing, Pyongyang's biggest ally, has come under pressure from Washington to exert more influence on its neighbour.

Mr Trump said China was 'working with us' on the issue - the first confirmation the two nations were collaborating.

Tensions between North Korea and the US were already on a knife-edge over the posting of the strike group led by a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the region - a move that was denounced by North Korea.

Pyongyang then rolled out its deadly arsenal on Saturday.

Ballistic missiles and canisters capable of housing intercontinental ballistic missiles that could strike the US mainland were among those items on display.

But North Korea did not carry out its sixth nuclear bomb test, as previously feared. A White House official said that, had it been a nuclear test, 'other actions would have been taken by the US'. Mr Pence - on a ten-day trip to Asia - told US troops: 'This morning's provocation is just the latest reminder of the risks each one of you face every day in the defence of the freedom of the people of South Korea and the defence of America in this part of the world.'

Thousands of US and South Korean troops, tanks and other weaponry had been deployed last month in their biggest-ever jont military exercises. That led North Korea to issue routine threats of attacks on its rivals if they showed signs of aggression.

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Fears rise of U.S. strike on North Korea

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Lieutenant General HR McMaster said 'all our options are on the table' to try to 'avoid the worst Frantic talks were taking place with allies including China to 'develop a range of options' The US refused to rule out a pre-emptive strike on North Korea last night as Donald Trump's national security adviser warned the situation was 'coming to a head'.