This US Department of Defense/Missile Defense Agency handout photo shows a terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor launching from a THAAD battery located on Wake Island, in the western Pacific Ocean on November 1, 2015. (AFP) “There will be physical response measures from us as soon as the location and time that the invasionary tool for US world supremacy, THAAD, will be brought into South Korea are confirmed,” read a statement released by Pyongyang at the time. Tensions have been flaring in the region since January, when North Korea said it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb, its fourth nuclear test, and vowed to build up its nuclear program as deterrence against potential aggression from the US and its regional allies. A month later, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket which it said placed an earth observation satellite into orbit. However, Washington and Seoul denounced it as a cover for an intercontinental ballistic missile test.

Under the cover of Russian airstrikes and heavy artillery, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), alongside Liwaa Al-Quds (Palestinian paramilitary) and the National Defense Forces (NDF), began a new assault in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo City tonight, targeting the Handarat Refugee Camp near the Al-Castillo Highway.
A military source in Aleppo City told Al-Masdar on Monday night that the Syrian Armed Forces stormed the eastern neighborhoods inside the Handarat Camp, resulting in a series of violent firefights with the jihadist rebel factions.
Intense clashes are currently ongoing between the two opposing parties inside the eastern neighborhoods of the Handarat Camp; meanwhile, the Russin Air Force is doing its part by pounding away at the jihadist rebels in the western sector.
The Handarat Camp was once home to thousands of Palestinian refugees; however, it is now occupied by the jihadist rebels who have turned it into one of their most fortified areas of Aleppo.