Category: North Korea

I wonder what the Chinese response would be to someone threatening to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on them?:

North Korea is prepared to launch the big one.

A top North Korean official is warning that the isolated nation is ready to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US if necessary, NBC News reported Monday.

“The US has nuclear weapons off our coast, targeting our country, our capital and our dear leader, Kim Jong Un,” Lee Yong Pil, director of the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for American Studies, told NBC News. “We will not step back as long as there’s a nuclear threat to us from the United States.”

Lee said the US does not have a “monopoly” on pre-emptive nuclear strikes.

“If we see that the US would do it to us, we would do it first,” Lee said. “We have the technology.”

North Korea may also conduct more nuclear tests, including a “sixth, a seventh or an eighth” trial, Lee said, adding that the hardened stance comes amid “increasingly aggressive” drills by the US and South Korea.  [New York Post]

You can read more at the link.

N. Korea lambasts Russel for his 'immediately die' comment https://t.co/7zgWzH0R6F

— Yonhap News Agency (@YonhapNews) October 15, 2016

North Korea over the weekend tried to conduct a seventh Musudan missile test and it blew up shortly after launch:

North Korea test-fired an intermediate-range missile Saturday in its latest military provocation, but the missile exploded seconds after its launch, the South Korean military reported Sunday.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that the North launched what appeared to have been a Musudan missile from the northwestern city of Kusong in North Pyongan Province at around 12:33 p.m. Saturday. A Musudan missile has a range between 3,000 and 4,000 kilometers (1,864 and 2,485 miles), long enough to reach U.S. military installations in Guam.

“The missile exploded in the air just seconds after launch. We are now looking into the cause of the failure,” said a military official on condition of anonymity. The official said South Korea and the United States had closely cooperated in analyzing Saturday’s failed launch and assessed it was a Musudan missile launch. The official added that South Korea’s military analyzed the failed launch by sharing surveillance data provided by the U.S. military obtained by its intelligence assets including satellites.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but this failure means that in seven test launches they have had one successful firing of the Musudan missile.

The ROK must have gotten all the intelligence they could out of this guy before leaking to the media that he has defected:

A high-level North Korean official in charge of state surveillance defected to the South in 2015, a government source said.

The South Korean source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the official was a director-level member of Pyongyang’s state security department, Yonhap reported on Wednesday, local time.

The high-ranking defector was in charge of identifying trends in public sentiment among the residents of Pyongyang, the capital where the country’s elite reside.

“It is believed in interviews with [South Korean] authorities the official said public sentiment [about the North Korean leadership] in Pyongyang is ‘heated,'” the source stated.

The term “heated” is used to convey negativity about the Kim Jong Un regime, the source explained.

It is highly unusual for North Korean state security department personnel to flee the country, and the defector, identified as “A” in the Yonhap report, is believed to have left with confidential information on the Kim regime, and the leadership’s surveillance methods critical to maintaining control of the population.

The defector reportedly told South Korean government interviewers members of his bureau were uncomfortable with Kim’s rule, and after watching “others bounce,” state agents are “bouncing,” or exiting the regime.  [UPI]

You can read more at the link.

While DPRK major day came and went with no signs of tests, question is DPRK planning something else or just still reeling with flood damages

— Nathan J Hunt (@ISNJH) October 11, 2016

North Korea just added the U.S. to its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Discuss. https://t.co/fDFCQO9et8 https://t.co/Uk5Z6lYUCW

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) October 10, 2016

It looks like the Obama administration is about to make a bigger issue of North Korea’s human rights record:

The United States ambassador to the United Nations visited a settlement support center for North Korean defectors on Sunday, official sources said.

Samantha Power, who arrived in Seoul the day before, toured the Hanawon center in Anseong some 77 kilometers south of the South Korean capital and held talks with North Koreans who fled the reclusive country.

Authorities said she took part in a prayer session with some of the defectors who are receiving training so they can assimilate into their new lives in the South.

Government insiders said the trip reflects Washington’s drive to make an issue of the North’s deplorable human rights abuses that could lead to the matter being linked to additional sanctions down the road. Currently talks are underway at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to penalize the North following its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Here is another article that shows that more people are considering the surgical strike option against North Korea’s nuclear program:

Calls for “surgical strikes” against North Korean nuclear facilities have gained ground recently along with calls for more stringent sanctions, despite many observers expressing skepticism that neither South Korea and the United States have the political will to pursue such a military option.

The close allies have both recently floated the idea of a pre-emptive surgical strike on the North’s nuclear facilities after the communist regime conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 9.

Seoul’s defense ministry said Thursday the two allies will “have a consultation over a possible pre-emptive strike against North Korea depending on situations in case of an imminent nuclear attack by the North.”

In Washington, officials have revisited the surgical strike option which was considered against North Korea’s Yeongbyeon nuclear facilities under the Bill Clinton administration in 1994. That’s because the North has continued to improve its nuclear and missile capabilities despite international sanctions and condemnation.

Democratic U.S. vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine said Tuesday (U.S. time) he will support pre-emptive strikes against North Korea if it shows signs of launching a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the real question is what does the US and ROK do when North Korea responds to such a strike by launching ballistic missiles and artillery against South Korean population centers?

This photo from the North’s Korean Central News Agency on Oct. 6, 2016, shows the completed first phase of Honggondo tideland. The section is part of a giant project to connect islands along the west coast with levees and create 35 square kilometers of tideland. (Yonhap)

I guess we will see if there will be an upcoming rocket test by the North Koreans:

Increased activity has been detected at North Korea’s rocket launch site with a concerted effort under way to conceal what is taking place, a U.S. website monitoring the North said, amid concerns the regime could undertake renewed provocations to mark a key anniversary this week.

Commercial satellite imagery taken on Oct. 1 of Sohae Satellite Launching Station in North Pyongan Province showed increased movement around the engine test facility, 38 North said Saturday.

It said photos showed crates next to the gantry tower on the launch pad and several large vehicles in front of the newly built fuel-oxidizer bunker. It said covers placed over many sites made it impossible to observe if a space launch vehicle or related components are located at the gantry tower or have been moved into the assembly structures.

The website then said images showed shelters erected next to the rocket test stand, indicating some sort of work may be underway.

“It may indicate preparations for a new engine test or continued work at the test stand in the aftermath of the September 20 engine test,” it said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.