BREAKING: U.S. SHOOTS DOWN HIGH ALTITUDE OBJECT OVER ALASKA

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military on Friday afternoon shot down a "high-altitude object" flying over Alaskan airspace that the Department of Defense was tracking over the last 24 hours, National Security Council official John Kirby confirmed at the White House.

"The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object and they did and it came inside our territorial waters and those waters right now are frozen," Kirby told reporters at the White House briefing.


Fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command took down the object "within the last hour," Kirby said around 2:30 p.m. ET.


The Pentagon will have more to say about the situation later in the afternoon, Kirby said. A press briefing is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET.

Kirby made clear the U.S. does not know who owns the object and he would not call it a balloon, like the one allegedly owned by the Chinese government that the U.S. military shot down last weekend.

"We're calling this an object because that's the best description we have right now," Kirby said. "We do not know who owns it, whether it's state-owned or corporate-owned or privately-owned. We just don't know."

Officials did not understand the full purpose of the object, Kirby added, saying the U.S. expects that it will be able to recover the debris because it fell over what they believe is frozen water. "A recovery effort will be made and we're hopeful that it'll be successful and then we can learn a little bit more about it," he said.

The object was described as "roughly the size of a small car," Kirby said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

US NAVY photos of downed Chinese Spy Balloon recovery surface.

 SOURCE: US NAVY 

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China's spy balloon flying over U.S.

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The U.S. military has been monitoring a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that has been hovering over the northern U.S. for the past few days, and military and defense leaders have discussed shooting it out of the sky, according to two U.S. officials and a senior defense official.

“The United States government has detected and is tracking a high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States right now,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told NBC News. “We continue to track and monitor it closely.”

“Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information,” Ryder said.

The high-altitude balloon was spotted over Billings, Montana, on Wednesday. It flew over the Aleutian Islands, through Canada, and into Montana. A senior defense official said the balloon is still over the U.S. but declined to say where it is now.

On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin convened a meeting of senior military and defense leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, NORTHCOM/NORAD Commander Gen. Glen VanHerck, and other combatant commanders.

Austin was traveling in the Philippines at the time.

The leaders reviewed the threat profile of the Chinese stratospheric balloon and possible response options, and ultimately decided not to recommend taking it out kinetically, because of the risk to safety and security of people on the ground from the possible debris field. Pentagon leaders presented the options to President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

A senior administration official confirmed that Biden had been briefed and received a “strong recommendation” that the balloon not be shot down.

“Instances of this activity have been observed over the past several years, including prior to this administration,” said the senior administration official. “We acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.”

Biden did not respond to a question from reporters about the balloon on Thursday afternoon at the White House.

“Currently we assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective over and above what the PRC can do through other means,” the senior defense official said. “Nevertheless we are taking all necessary steps to protect against foreign intelligence collection of sensitive information.”

The official said the balloon does not pose a threat to civil aviation because of its altitude.

The official said the U.S. military will continue to monitor it closely and will keep the option of taking out the balloon on the table.

“We are tracking it in minute detail in real time and we will constantly update our assessment,” the official said. “We are in constant surveillance of this thing through a bunch of different means.”

The official said there was a window while the balloon was over Montana Wednesday when they could have taken it down. NORAD sent aircraft — including F-22 Raptors from Nellis Air Force Base and airborne early warning aircraft known as AWACs — but the official would not say whether one of the options was to shoot the balloon out of the sky with a U.S. aircraft.

The U.S. military flights prompted a ground stop at the airport in Billings, with air traffic controllers citing a “special military mission.”

The U.S. is confident the balloon belongs to China, the official said, and they have communicated to the Chinese government “through multiple channels both here in D.C. and in Beijing.” The official did not say whether the Chinese admitted the balloon was theirs.

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Iran has enough enriched uranium to build several nukes report says

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran has enough highly enriched uranium to build “several” nuclear weapons if it chooses, the United Nations’ top nuclear official is now warning. But diplomatic efforts aimed at again limiting its atomic program seem more unlikely than ever before as Tehran arms Russia in its war on Ukraine and as unrest shakes the Islamic Republic.

The warning from Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in response to questions from European lawmakers this week, shows just how high the stakes have become over Iran’s nuclear program. Even at the height of previous tensions between the West and Iran under hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran never enriched uranium as high as it does now.

For months, nonproliferation experts have suggested Iran had enough uranium enriched up to 60% to build at least one nuclear weapon — though Tehran long has insisted its program is for peaceful purposes. While offering a caveat on Tuesday that “we need to be extremely careful” in describing Iran’s program, Grossi bluntly acknowledged just how large Tehran’s high-enriched uranium stockpile had grown.

U.S. SPEC OPS RAID ends in death of key ISIS facilitator Bilal-al-Sudani,

A risky military ground raid by U.S. special operations forces on a cave complex in northern Somalia on Wednesday night killed Bilal al-Sudani, a top leader and organizer with the Islamic State, U.S. officials said.

Al-Sudani was killed in a firefight along with 10 other fighters, according to the officials. There were no U.S. casualties in the raid, the officials said, emphasizing that there were also no civilian casualties -- though officials later clarified that one of the U.S. service members had suffered a dog bite from a dog serving with U.S. forces.

The officials said President Joe Biden had authorized the raid earlier this week after conferring with his national security team. The U.S. forces that conducted the raid had rehearsed it many times at a mock-up facility that simulated the target area -- a technique similar to what U.S. special operations forces did prior to the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden at a compound in Pakistan.

U.S. forces had prepared for the possibility of capturing al-Sudani, the officials said, “but the hostile forces response to the operation resulted in his death.” The officials refused to say whether the timing of the operation indicated that there was an imminent attack threat to the U.S.

“On January 25, on orders from the President, the U.S. military conducted an assault operation in northern Somalia that resulted in the death of a number of ISIS members, including Bilal-al-Sudani, an ISIS leader in Somalia and a key facilitator for ISIS’s global network,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

“Al-Sudani was responsible for fostering the growing presence of ISIS in Africa and for funding the group’s operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan,” Austin continued.

“This action leaves the United States and its partners safer and more secure, and it reflects our steadfast commitment to protecting Americans from the threat of terrorism at home and abroad,” he said, praising "our extraordinary service members as well as our intelligence community and other interagency partners for their support to this successful counterterrorism operation.”

U.S. officials who briefed reporters on the raid described al-Sudani as a notorious extremist.

“[He] has a long history as a terrorist in Somalia. Before he joined ISIS, he was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2012 for his role in [the group] Shabaab, helping foreign fighters to travel to an Al Shabaab training camp, facilitating financing for foreign violent extremists in Somalia,” one of the two U.S. officials told reporters.

“This operation was the result of extraordinary coordination and careful planning across all elements of the U.S. government for many months,” one of the officials said, noting having first seen the first intelligence on al-Sudani’s whereabouts months ago.

READ MORE AT ABC NEWS HERE