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Turkey's Defense Minister Hulusi Akar dismissed the Pentagon's latest warning over Ankara's imminent procurement of Russian missiles on Thursday as "language unbecoming of an ally." U.S. acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan's letter to his Turkish counterpart laid out a detailed timetable of Turkey's exclusion from the purchase and production of America's latest F-35 fighter jet if Ankara buys Russia's S-400 missiles system.

"A standoff over China’s encroachment on this city’s legal autonomy deepened, with hundreds of police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, as the financial center’s Beijing-backed government showed no signs of yielding during a second day of widespread demonstrations."

"Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned of another military conflict in the Middle East if the global community is not more patient in the quest to ease escalating tensions between the United States and Iran."

"Despite an aggressive counterinsurgency campaign waged by the Egyptian military, militants linked to IS are still capable of coordinating sophisticated attacks."

Kosovo is celebrating the 20th anniversary of a NATO intervention that drove out Serbian troops and helped end a crackdown that left more than 10,000 ethnic Albanians dead.

"For the first time in decades, it is possible to imagine the United States fighting—and possibly losing—a large-scale war with a great power. For generations of Americans accustomed to U.S. military superiority and its ability to deter major wars, the idea of armed conflict between great powers may seem highly improbable. The idea that the United States—with the most expensive armed forces in the world by a wide margin—might lose such a war would seem absolutely preposterous. Nevertheless, the possibility of war and U.S. defeat are real and growing."

"A merger that would be the aerospace-and-defense industry’s biggest ever caps two years of deal making in a sector that is reorganizing in anticipation of slower growth in Pentagon spending and new priorities such as space systems and hypersonic missiles."

"U.S. President Donald Trump and his Polish counterpart will make "a significant announcement on the future security partnership" Wednesday at the White House, according to senior administration officials."

"Iran is engaged in a soft war, or jang-e narm, with the United States. Iran uses formal and informal means to influence populations across the globe and has expanded its information campaign utilizing the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, cultural centers, universities, and charitable foundations."

"Colombia’s House of Representatives opened a debate on Monday to censure the country’s defense minister, amid national criticism that the military had issued orders this year encouraging human rights abuses."

"President Trump’s border wall — and the military construction projects he siphoned money from to help fund it — are going to take center stage at the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, as it attempts to finalize its annual defense bill amid several deeply partisan policy divides."

"With the Pakistani military’s crackdown on protesters in the northwestern tribal belt in recent days, the security forces have asserted themselves as the true masters of justice in the region."

"Nearly 100 people were killed in a gruesome overnight attack on a village in central Mali, in the latest violence to strike the fragile region, authorities said Monday."

"An aide to Polish President Andrzej Duda says that negotiations to increase the U.S. military presence in Poland have concluded and were a success."

"The US's top diplomat for Africa is going to Sudan this week amid unrest, the State Department said on Monday."

Continue on for the latest developments in Afghanistan via the Associated Press...

"France and the Netherlands have taken custody of French and Dutch orphans of Islamic State fighters in northeast Syria, an official in the Kurdish-led administration there said on Monday."

"President Trump says using such tactics creates leverage, but critics point to downsides."

"... but the attack, which killed 13 people at the American-funded institution, points to the incongruous challenge for the United States of creating a top-flight university in Afghanistan, designed to produce future leaders, while at the same time waging the longest war in U.S. history."

"South Korea and the United States agreed June 3 to move the headquarters of Combined Forces Command out of the greater Seoul metropolitan area as part of efforts to set up a new joint command structure led by a South Korean four-star general."

"Turkey has been given a deadline of the end of July to choose between buying US F-35 fighter jets and Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems."

"The USS Abraham Lincoln, with its contingent of Navy destroyers and cruisers and a fighting force of about 70 aircraft, is the centerpiece of the Pentagon's response to what it calls Iranian threats to attack U.S. forces or commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf region. In recent years, there has been no regular U.S. aircraft carrier presence in the Middle East."

"Israel has a right to annex at least some, but 'unlikely all,' of the West Bank, the United States ambassador, David M. Friedman, said in an interview, opening the door to American acceptance of what would be an enormously provocative act."

"This was supposed to be the year the farmers of eastern Syria and Iraq bounced back. For the first time in a decade, neither war nor drought had intervened to deter what promised to be a bumper harvest. Fields of golden wheat rippled across the vast lands once ravaged by militant fighters, the most fertile area of the region that in centuries past served as the breadbasket of the known world."

"The United Nations is demanding an immediate end to indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure in northwest Syria, warning the warring parties their actions might amount to war crimes."