Second Coming Watch Sunday Roundup #62

1. France’s foreign minister said on Thursday that comments made by Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei downplaying a framework agreement between Tehran and world powers show that the nuclear accord is far from a done deal. 

2. Saudi Arabia said on Saturday that at least 500 insurgent Shi’ites have been killed along the Saudi-Yemen border since a Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes late last month against Houthi rebels seeking to gain control of neighboring Yemen.  

3. A small but highly dangerous succession of former Egyptian army officers are joining Islamist militant groups, complicating President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s efforts to counter what he calls an existential threat from extremism.

4. China’s rapid expansion of its navy has put it ahead of the United States in nuclear and diesel-powered vessels. 

5. Late last month, China began flooding American websites with a barrage of Internet traffic in an apparent effort to take out services that allow China’s Internet users to view websites otherwise blocked in the country.

6. Iran's Tasnim news agency reported a senior Iranian commander as saying that Iran's military sites will never be open for inspection under a comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers.

7. The Palestinian Labor Minister says the Syrian government has agreed to use military force to expel Islamic State terrorists from a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. 

8. US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter addressed the possibility of a military option against Iran, saying that bunker busting bombs, meant to penetrate Iran's underground facilities, are "ready to go."

9. Islamic State militants attacked the capital of Iraq's vast Anbar province on multiple fronts on Friday, seizing two areas on the city outskirts in a setback for a government campaign to retake the desert terrain.

...