Tag: Syria

Just another example that the Israeli do not play around when it comes to bad actors plotting against them:

North Korean missile experts who worked on Syrian weapons development were killed and wounded in an Israeli airstrike in Syria, according to an Israeli media report.

Debka File, an Israeli defense media outlet, reported the airstrike, which hit the Scientific Studies and Research Center in the Syrian town of Masyaf on Saturday, killed and wounded weapons experts from North Korea and Belarus as well as Iranian and Syrian military officers. It said the missile technicians were hired to upgrade Syrian missiles, citing Western intelligence sources. It did not state the exact number of casualties.

AFP, meanwhile, wrote the attack was carried out early Saturday and killed several Iranian military personnel and wounded 17 Syrian troops and their allies.

“North Korean engineers were working on the production of solid fuel, while Belarusians were in the pay of Syria’s Organization of Technological Industries,” Debka File reported.

“Especially targeted were the sections working on the upgrade of Syrian and Hezbollah surface missiles, the production of solid fuel for those missiles and the departments focusing on installing new guidance instruments to enhance their precision.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but long time ROK Heads may remember that Israel killed North Korean nuclear specialists back in 2007 in another bombing strike.

Yes, their own people. https://t.co/YawX9VorHi

— Edward Oh 🇺🇸 (@EdwardHBOh) December 5, 2018

These deportations and arrest will likely give critics support for not admitting anymore refugees into South Korea:

Six migrant workers have been deported this year over allegations they supported international terrorist groups.

This followed a joint operation by South Korea’s top law enforcers.

Police, prosecutors, the national intelligence service and the justice ministry discovered evidence that the suspects endorsed the terrorist groups “beyond curiosity” and shared information about them with others.

The information came to light in a report revealed during the national anti-terror committee’s regular meeting at the Seoul Government Complex on Monday. Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon presided over it.

Another report said a Syrian migrant worker was arrested in Incheon for inciting co-workers to join extreme Islamic terrorist group ISIS. The Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency’s international criminal investigation bureau arrested the man, 33, for showing ISIS promotional video clips to the workers and encouraging them to join it. The authority sent his case to prosecutors early this month.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but a flood of Muslim refugees into Jeju Island from mostly Yemen has caused terrorism fears to grow in South Korea in recent months.

Just another example of the lucrative weapons trade the North Koreans continue to have Syria:

North Korea has twice been caught attempting to ship material to Syria’s chemical weapons agency in the past six months, according to a confidential UN report prepared by a panel of experts.  (……)

The shipments were sent by KOMID, the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation – an organisation blacklisted by the UN security council in 2009, and described as Pyongyang’s key arms dealer and exporter of equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. (…….)

“Two member states interdicted shipments destined for Syria.

“Another Member state informed the panel that it had reasons to believe that the goods were part of a KOMID contract with Syria.”

 The UN experts said activities between Syria and North Korea they were investigating included cooperation on Syrian Scud missile programmes and maintenance and repair of Syrian surface-to-air missiles air defence systems.  [The Telegraph]

As I have always said, from the Kim regime perspective it makes perfect sense to develop nuclear weapons and there is nothing anyone can do diplomatically that can change his mind:

North Korea said on Saturday U.S. missile strikes against a Syrian airfield on Friday were “an unforgivable act of aggression” that showed its decision to develop nuclear weapons was “the right choice a million times over”.

The response by North Korea’s foreign ministry, carried by the official KCNA news agency, was the first since U.S. warships in the Mediterranean Sea launched dozens of missiles at a Syrian air base which the Pentagon says was involved in a chemical weapons attack earlier in the week.

“The U.S. missile attack against Syria is a clear and unforgivable act of aggression against a sovereign state and we strongly condemn this,” KCNA quoted an unnamed spokesman for the North Korean foreign ministry as saying.

“The reality of today proves our decision to strengthen our military power to stand against force with force was the right choice a million times over,” KCNA said.  [Reuters]

It figures the North Koreans would send a congratulatory message to a regime that likes to use chemical weapons on their own citizens:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has sent a congratulatory message to Syria over the founding anniversary of the country’s ruling party, Pyongyang’s media said Friday, amid global condemnation against Damascus’s suspected chemical weapon attack on civilians.

The North’s leader sent the message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to mark the 70th anniversary of the creation of the controlling Ba’ath party, according to Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s main newspaper.

The move is seen to be aimed at showing friendly ties between Pyongyang and Damascus as about 90 people were killed by the Syrian government’s suspected uses of chemical weapons Tuesday against a rebel-held area in the northern part of the country.

“The two countries’ friendly relations will be strengthened and developed, given their fight against imperialism,” Kim was quoted as saying by the newspaper.  (…….)

 

The U.S. launched a barrage of cruise missiles at an air base on Thursday night (local time) in retaliation for the latest chemical weapon attack for which Washington blames Assad.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but long time ROK Drop readers may remember that in 2007 North Korean scientists were killed by an Israeli bombing strike into Syria that destroyed the nuclear reactor the Kim regime was helping the Syrians to construct. Now a decade later the North Korean nuclear reactor may be the next one facing a bombing strike.

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.

Syrian refugees living in South Korea hold a press conference in front of the state-run human rights commission in central Seoul on Sept. 13, 2015, urging people to help refugees from Syria. (Yonhap)

Syrian delegation in Pyongyang clearly has an inside track to Kim Jong-un, who regales them w/ mushrooms & dolphins http://t.co/m1JqvWMx1i

— Adam Cathcart (@adamcathcart) June 15, 2015

Considering North Korea’s long defense relationship with Syria to include trying to make them a nuclear reactor, it only makes sense that ISIS would have captured plenty of North Korean manufactured weaponry:

The terror group ISIS that is effectively in charge of vast swathes of Syria and Iraq is using North Korean-made tanks and portable missiles, the website NK News claimed Monday.

It cited intelligence sources as claiming tanks used by ISIS in an attack on a Kurdish region in northern Iraq in September were Soviet T-55 tanks upgraded in North Korea, and portable missiles used by militants are of a type manufactured in the North.

Earlier, German intelligence told lawmakers that ISIS has portable surface-to-air missiles that are capable of shooting down civilian aircraft. A photo of an ISIS militant brandishing the weapon was posted on Twitter.

At the time, German intelligence believed the weapon was Russian, Bulgarian or Chinese in origin.

But NK News said ISIS got its hands on North Korean-made weapons by capturing them from government forces in Syria. The two countries maintained close ties since the 1970s and the North exported various weapons to Syria, including the upgraded T-55 tanks and portable surface-to-air missiles.  [Chosun Ilbo]

The original NK News article for those that have a subscription can be read at this link.