Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has said commanders in Iraq have begun to use the Boeing-built Apache helicopters from the U.S. in support of the campaign against the Islamic State militant organization, DoD News reported Tuesday.

Lisa Ferdinando writes Carter told reporters during his trip to Brussels Monday that President Barack Obama authorized the use of the aircraft “some months ago” and that Apache helicopters were used to destroy an Islamic State-related target in an air strike Sunday.

A spokesman for the Defense Department said Apache helicopters were deployed Sunday to support the Iraqi security forces that operate in the Tigris River Valley, Ferdinando reports.

“The Apache strike destroyed [an ISIL] vehicle-borne improvised explosive device near Qayyarah, Iraq,” the DoD spokesman said, according to the report.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said current estimates show that military spending in Canada and the alliance’s other member states in Europe has increased by 1.5 percent, or more than $3 billion, DoD News reported Tuesday.

Jim Garamone writes Stoltenberg highlighted spending trends across the alliance on the eve of the group’s two-day defense ministers forum in Brussels.

“This is real progress,” he said Monday, according to the report.

“After many years of going in the wrong direction, we are starting to go into the right direction.”

He also noted that NATO has tripled the number of its Response Force troops to around 40,000 and assembled a Spearhead Force of roughly 5,000 troops the alliance plans to deploy in Poland and the Baltic States, Garamone reports.

The Wall Street Journal reported that NATO ministers acknowledged cyberspace as a new domain in warfare during their meeting Tuesday.

Stoltenberg said the alliance will prioritize efforts to develop technologies that would help member nations to identify actors in cyber intrusions and attacks, according to the story by WSJ’s Julian Barnes.

“This is about developing our abilities and capabilities to protect NATO cyber networks but also to help and assist nations in defending their cyber networks,” he told the newspaper.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter and his Singaporean counterpart Ng Eng Hen discussed cooperation on maritime security and counterterrorism activities as the U.S. and Singapore work to advance diplomatic relations, DoD News reported Friday.

Lisa Ferdinando writes Carter said during a visit to the Asian country early this month that both nations stand for cooperation, inclusiveness and principle to drive international affairs in line with the U.S. rebalance efforts in the region.

Carter noted Singapore helps maintain regional maritime security and hosts U.S. P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft and littoral combat ships as well as more than 100 U.S. Navy ships and more than 800 U.S. aircraft that pass through the country annually.

The U.S. formally opened diplomatic ties with Singapore a year after the Asian country broke away from Malaysia in 1965, the report said.

California Army National Guard’s 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team has joined a U.S. Army Forces Command program that pairs National Guard and Reserve units with active BCTs for joint planning, interoperability and training exercises, the Army News Service reported Thursday.

David Vergun writes the 79th Infantry BCT trained with the 1st Armored Division’s 4th Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment from May 15 to June 4 as part of FORSCOM’s Total Force Partnership Program.

Lt. Col. David Murphy, commander of the 79th IBCT’s 1st Battalion, 143rd Field Artillery Regiment, said the partnership represents the first time in over a decade that the military unit partnered with an active duty component.

The program works to operationalize the Army Total Force Policy established in 2012 and coordinate all eight Army National Guard division headquarters and with active component corps headquarters, Vergun reports.