Russian, Chinese Bombers Intercepted Near Alaska

Russian and Chinese military aircraft flying near Alaska on Wednesday were intercepted by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the first time those countries have been intercepted while working together, according to a US defense official who spoke to CNN. Two Russian and two Chinese bombers were spotted in international airspace in Alaska's Air Defense Identification Zone and remained there, not entering the sovereign airspace of either the US or Canada, the Hill reports. US F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, Canadian CF-18 fighter jets, and other support aircraft were deployed to intercept the Russian TU-95 and Chinese H-6 bombers, despite the fact that the foreign aircraft were "not seen as a threat," per NORAD.

It's not uncommon for Russian aircraft to be seen in Alaska's ADIZ, in which aircraft are required to be readily identified for national security purposes, ABC News reports. But China is going further north into the Arctic than it has in the past, experts say, and the presence of Chinese aircraft there is a recent development. "What I have seen is a willingness and a desire by the Chinese to act up there," the head of US Northern Command told a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee in March. "We have seen them in the maritime. We have seen them under the cloud of a technical or scientific research, but we think it is certainly multi-mission, to include military." (More NORAD stories.)