Category: North Korea

If anyone cares at this point, it looks like North Korea has continued with its weapons testing:

North Korea fired a short-range projectile from an area near its eastern coast on Tuesday, South Korean officials said, in what appears to be another weapons test seen as a response to ongoing military drills between Washington and Seoul.

The projectile was fired near the North Korean port city of Wonsan and flew about 200 kilometers (125 miles) before crashing into land northeast of the launch site, South Korean military officials said.

It was unclear whether the projectile was a ballistic missile or an artillery shell, said a Joint Chiefs of Staff official who didn’t want to be identified, citing office rules. It was too early to tell whether North Korea used a land target to test the accuracy and range of its weapons or experienced problems after planning a launch into the sea, said an official from Seoul’s Defense Ministry, who also didn’t want to be named because of department rules.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Today's Rodong Sinmun front page: Kim Jong Un, with wife, gives on-the-spot guidance at new department store. #DPRK pic.twitter.com/kGQdJeSTVv

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) March 28, 2016

I do not see anything shocking about the potential of North Korean soldiers fighting on the behalf of the Assad regime in Syria.  It seems like a good opportunity for some of North Korea’s elite units to receive some combat experience while helping out one of their few allies.  Remember the Kim and Assad regimes are very close especially considering the North Koreans tried to build Syria a secret nuclear reactor before the Israelis detected the construction and bombed it killing a number of North Koreans:

This week, representatives of Western-backed Syrian opposition delegation in Geneva told Russian state media that President Bashar Assad had a surprising new ally on the Syrian battlefield: militia units from North Korea.

“Two North Korean units are there, which are Chalma-1 and Chalma-7,” Asaad az-Zoubi, head of the High Negotiations Committee to Syrian peace talks in the Swiss city, reportedly told Tass news agency Tuesday.

In any other context, the presence of soldiers from the internationally isolated and geographically distant country North Korea might seem absurd. However, the civil war in Syria has emerged as a mini-world war over the past five years, with foreign fighters from at least 86 countries believed to be fighting there.

The Syrian regime headed by Assad is already known to have the support of a number of international partners, including Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah. And this isn’t the first time that there have been reports of soldiers from the Hermit Kingdom being involved in the conflict.

In 2013, Rami Abdulrahman, director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Saudi-owned Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat that a small number of North Koreans were in Syria, to provide logistical and planning support.

“The exact number of the officers is not known, but there are definitely 11 to 15 North Korean officers, most of whom speak Arabic,” Abdulrahman said, according to a translation published by South Korean outlet Chosun Ilbo. Abdulrahman’s report was followed up the next year by another from Jane’s Defence Weekly, which reported that North Korea was assisting helping Syria improve its missile capabilities.

These reports are hard to confirm, but many experts believe they are credible: North Korea and Syria have had a military relationship for decades and there’s little sign it’s been shaken recently.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read much more at the link.

https://twitter.com/freekorea_us/status/713906714861518849

Here is the latest propaganda attack against the US from North Korea which seems a new one is coming out every day now:

North Korea released a dramatic propaganda video Saturday called “Last Chance” that depicts a nuclear strike on Washington, complete with animation of a missile slamming into the earth near the Lincoln Memorial.

The four-minute video, backed by a hyper musical score reminiscent of TV Westerns of the 1960s, includes a mushroom cloud and an American flag going up in flames.  [USA Today]

Here is the complete video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbOYRLlhIP4

https://twitter.com/freekorea_us/status/713721701851406336

North Korea cites @reddit comments for the prowess of its nuclear weapons. pic.twitter.com/j5yqqCOqJT

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) March 22, 2016

Here we go again and just like each time one of these idiots gets in trouble in North Korea I continue to have no sympathy for them since they willing entered North Korea and put themselves at risk of detainment:

A man identified by North Korea as an American detainee said Friday he conducted espionage against the Communist nation and appealed for leniency at a state-controlled appearance that marked the first official accounting of his alleged crimes.

The highly scripted display of the prisoner — identified as Kim Dong-chul, a former resident of Fairfax, Va. — is certain to escalate tensions with Washington less than two weeks after North Korea sentenced an American student to 15 years in prison with hard labor for allegedly trying to take a sign as a souvenir during a tour.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials. But Washington has previously accused North Korea of taking Americans into custody as political pawns in its showdowns with the West over issues such as Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

In the North Korean capital, news agencies said Kim was brought before reporters and stated that he spied for South Korea’s intelligence agencies, sought to obtain details of the North’s military programs and tried to spread “religious” ideas — a serious crime in the North. [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link.

This is not good if true because it means that North Korea could fire their long range rockets without fueling.  Fueling of rockets if detected gives the US and the ROK militaries forewarning of a possible attack which solid fuel rockets prevents:

Leader Kim Jong-un claimed North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel rocket engine that boosts the power of its ballistic missiles, state media reported Thursday, in his latest boast of military technology breakthroughs following United Nations sanctions.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Kim led a test of solid-fuel rocket engines, stressing that the result of the test was in line with previous estimations.

“He noted with great pleasure that the successful test provided a guarantee for attaining the high goals of national defense science and technology without fail this year when the Seventh Congress of the Worker’s Party of Korea [meets],” the KCNA said, “and helped boost the power of ballistic rockets capable of mercilessly striking hostile forces.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

North Koreans say sanction hits hard on Kim Jong-un, but inevitably it will hit people’s lives as well https://t.co/nwuapDkdX4

— RimjingangNK (@RimjingangNK) March 23, 2016