Category: North Korea

It appears the North Koreans are relying on misinformation to hype up their military capabilities:

A contrail of what appears to be a North Korean missile launch is seen from South Korea’s northwestern border island of Yeonpyeong in the Yellow Sea on June 26, 2024. (Yonhap)

South Korea’s military on Thursday dismissed North Korea’s claim of successfully conducting a multiple-warhead missile test earlier this week as a form of “deception,” reaffirming its assessment the missile exploded in the air.

Earlier in the day, the North said it conducted a successful missile test Wednesday aimed at securing multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capabilities, contradicting South Korea’s earlier assessment the launch ended in failure.

“North Korea’s missile launched yesterday exploded in an early stage of the flight,” Col. Lee Sung-jun, spokesperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), told reporters in a briefing. “North Korea made a different announcement this morning but (we) believe that this is merely a method of deception and exaggeration.”

Lee said photos released by the North this morning of the missile launch appeared to be similar to its launch of the Hwasong-17 liquid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launched in March 2023.

Yonhap

I suspect we will see North Korea launch their own loudspeaker broadcasts along with more trash attacks in the near future:

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatened Sunday to take “new responses” if South Korea keeps sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border and blasting loudspeaker broadcasts, calling it a “prelude to a very dangerous situation.”

The statement by Kim Yo-jong came after the South resumed propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts toward the North in retaliation against the North’s repeated sending of trash-filled balloons amid rising tensions in the inter-Korean border regions.

“Seoul’s politicians are continuing to create a new crisis environment … They are formalizing once again provocative behaviors by resuming loudspeaker provocations as a countermeasure to our challenging initiatives,” Kim said in the statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

Kim claimed that the North was going to stop sending the balloons early this week, but it ended up flying more in response to the anti-Pyongyang leafleting by North Korean defectors and activists in the South.

“Our counteraction (of sending balloons) was to end on the 9th, but the situation has changed … The loudspeaker broadcast provocation has finally begun in border areas. This is a prelude to a very dangerous situation,” she said.

“If South Korea chooses to engage in the leaflet-scattering and loudspeaker provocations across the border, without a doubt, they will witness our new response,” Kim said. Kim, however, did not specify what the new responses will be.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I have to give the Kim regime points for creativity on this latest provocation because this is definitely a new one:

 North Korea has sent more than 150 balloons carrying trash across the inter-Korean border, Seoul’s military said Wednesday, after the North warned of “tit-for-tat action” against anti-Pyongyang leaflets flown by the South’s activists.

Since Tuesday night, the balloons have crossed the border to fall in various locations across the country, reaching as far as the southeastern province of South Gyeongsang, and scatter waste as they fell to the ground, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

The fallen balloons appeared to have carried various pieces of trash, such as plastic bottles, batteries, shoe parts and even manure, a JCS official said, with military officials collecting the objects for a detailed analysis.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I hope the Russian rocket technology has a warranty the North Koreans can cash in on after this latest launch failure:

North Korea said Tuesday that its latest attempt to launch a new rocket carrying a military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure due to the midair explosion of the rocket during the first-stage flight this week.

The vice general director of the North’s National Aerospace Technology Administration (NATA) said the rocket carrying the satellite, the Malligyong-1-1, exploded after it lifted off from the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground on the country’s northwest coast on Monday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The launch came just hours after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese Premier Li Qiang held a trilateral summit in Seoul and reaffirmed their commitment to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This really shouldn’t be very surprising to anyone that North Korea would take some kind of provocation prior to the U.S. election:

U.S. officials are bracing for North Korea to potentially take its “most provocative” military action in a decade ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election, possibly at the urging of Russian President Vladimir Putin, NBC News reported Friday.

Citing six senior U.S. officials, the broadcaster also said that the United States has contingency plans to respond in the event of Pyongyang taking aggressive action in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, or shelling South Korean border islands — belligerence unseen since 2010.

“We have no doubt that North Korea will be provocative this year. It’s just a matter of how escalatory it is,” a U.S. intelligence official was quoted by NBC News as saying.

It said that the U.S. officials believe the timing of the North’s provocation could be designed to “create turmoil in yet another part of the world,” as the presidential race is set to be a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.