SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea on Sunday denied that it conducted cyber attacks against officials from rival South Korea, calling the South's accusation that it did so a "fabrication".

South Korea's spy agency told lawmakers on Friday that North Korea had recently stepped up cyber attack efforts against the South and succeeded in hacking the mobile phones of 40 national security officials, according to members of parliament who received a closed-door briefing.

"The South is claiming the North's cyber attack and using it for its own political purpose," an opinion piece in the Rodong Sinmun, the official daily newspaper of the North's ruling party, said on Sunday.

It accused the South of making the cyber attack claim in order to justify a controversial new "anti-terrorism" law.

"There is nothing to expect but the sound of eating corpses from a crow's mouth. However, we cannot just overlook the South's abrupt, provocative, and heinous accusations against its neighbor,” the article said.

Earlier in the week, South Korea's National Intelligence Service also said North Korea had tried to hack into email accounts of South Korean railway workers in an attempt to attack the transport system's control system, although it said had interrupted the hacking attempt against the railway workers and closed off their email accounts.

South Korea has been on heightened alert against the threat of cyber attacks by North Korea after it conducted a nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch last month, triggering new U.N. sanctions.

Tensions are also heightened on the Korean peninsula as South Korea and the United States conduct annual joint military exercises that the South says are the largest ever and on Sunday included the arrival in South Korea of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS John C Stennis.

North Korea has denounced the exercises as "nuclear war moves" and threatened to respond with an all-out offensive.

The North denied South Korea's previous accusation that it conducted cyber attacks against the South's nuclear operator.

The United States accused North Korea of a cyber attack against Sony Pictures in 2014 that led to the studio cancelling the release of a comedy based on the fictional assassination of the country's leader, Kim Jong Un.

North Korea denied the accusation.

(Reporting by Tony Munroe and Hooyeon Kim; Editing by Ed Davies)

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SEOUL — North Korea claimed Sunday that it could wipe out Manhattan by sending a hydrogen bomb on a ballistic missile to the heart of New York, the latest in a string of brazen threats.

Although there are many reasons to believe that Kim Jong Un's regime is exaggerating its technical capabilities, the near-daily drumbeat of boasts and warnings from Pyongyang underlines North Korea's anger at efforts to thwart its ambitions.

"Our hydrogen bomb is much bigger than the one developed by the Soviet Union," DPRK Today, a state-run outlet that uses the official acronym for North Korea, reported Sunday.

"If this H-bomb were to be mounted on an inter-continental ballistic missile and fall on Manhattan in New York City, all the people there would be killed immediately and the city would burn down to ashes," the report said, citing a nuclear scientist named Cho Hyong Il.

The website is a strange choice for issuing such a proclamation, given that it also carried reports about rabbit farming and domestically made school backpacks.

North Korea's newly developed hydrogen bomb "surpasses our imagination," Cho is quoted as saying, because it is many times as powerful as anything the Soviet Union had.

"The H-bomb developed by the Soviet Union in the past was able to smash windows of buildings 1,000 kms away and the heat was strong enough to cause third-degree burns 100 kms away," the report continued. (A thousand kilometers is about 625 miles; 100 kilometers, 62.5 miles)

Kim in January ordered North Korea's fourth nuclear test and claimed that it was a hydrogen bomb, not a simple atomic one. But most experts are skeptical of the claim, saying the seismic waves caused by the blast were similar to those caused by the North's three previous tests.

Then in February, Kim oversaw the launch of what North Korea said was a rocket that put a satellite into orbit, a move that is widely considered part of a long-range ballistic-missile program.

North Korea has made advances in its intercontinental ballistic-missile program, and experts generally conclude that the United States' West Coast could be in reach but that there has been no suggestion that the North would be able to hit the East Coast.

Many experts are also skeptical of the "miniaturized warhead" that Kim showed off last week during a visit to a nuclear weapons plant.

But Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, warned against dismissing it too soon.

"It does not look like U.S. devices, to be sure, but it is hard to know if aspects of the model are truly implausible or simply that North Korean nuclear weapons look different than their Soviet and American cousins," Lewis wrote in an analysis for 38 North, a website devoted to North Korea. "The size, however, is consistent with my expectations for North Korea."

As international condemnation of the North's acts mounted, culminating this month in the toughest United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang yet, Kim's regime has become increasingly belligerent, firing missiles into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, and issuing a new threat or denunciation almost every day.

The sanctions coincide with annual spring drills between the U.S. and South Korean militaries, which Pyongyang considers a rehearsal for an invasion. The current exercises are viewed as particularly antagonistic because special forces are practicing "decapitation strikes" on regime leaders and the destruction of nuclear and missile sites.

On Friday, North Korea's state media reported that Kim ordered more nuclear tests, while the North's Korean People's Army warned in a statement Saturday that it would counter the drills by "liberat[ing] the whole of South Korea including Seoul . . . with an ultra-precision blitzkrieg strike of the Korean style."

South Korea's Defense Ministry urged Pyongyang to stop its threats and provocations.

"If the North continues to make provocations despite the stern warnings made by our military, it is inevitable for us to roll out a strict response that may lead to the destruction of the Pyongyang regime," South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

(Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.)

SEE ALSO: North Korea's former supreme leader had elite scientists working to boost his libido

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A North Korean submarine has gone missing at sea and is presumed to have sunk, according to reports from the US and South Korea.

The vessel had reportedly been operating off the North Korean coast during the week when it disappeared.

A South Korean defence ministry said Seoul was investigating the reports. Pentagon officials declined to comment on the matter.

The US military had been observing the submarine off the North’s eastern coast, CNN said, citing three US officials familiar with the incident.

American spy satellites, aircraft and ships had been watching as the North Korean navy searched for the missing sub, the report said.

The US was unsure if the missing vessel is adrift or whether it has sunk, CNN reported, but officials believe it suffered a failure during an exercise.

The US Naval Institute (USNI) News said the submarine was presumed sunk.

“The speculation is that it sank,” an unidentified US official was quoted as telling USNI News.

“The North Koreans have not made an attempt to indicate there is something wrong or that they require help or some type of assistance.”

North Korea’s navy operates a fleet of 70 submarines, most of them being old diesel models capable of little more than coastal defence and limited offensive capabilities.

But they still pose a threat to South Korean vessels. In 2010 a South Korean corvette was reportedly torpedoed by a North Korean submarine near their sea border.

In August 2015 Seoul said said 70% of the North’s total submarine fleet – or around 50 vessels – had left their bases and disappeared from the South’s military radar, sparking alarm.

The incident comes as tensions were further heightened on the Korean peninsula by a fresh threat from Pyongyang.

The official KCNA news agency, citing a statement from military chiefs, warned of a “pre-emptive retaliatory strike at the enemy groups” involved in the joint US-South Korean drill.

Pyongyang added it planned to respond to the drills with an “operation to liberate the whole of South Korea including Seoul” with an “ultra-precision blitzkrieg”.

Responding to the statement, South Korea’s defence ministry urged Pyongyang to stop making threats or further provocations, according to Yonhap news agency.

With Agence France-Presse. This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

This article was written by Agencies and Staff from The Guardian and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

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NOW WATCH: You are considered a traitor for having dusty photos of the leaders in North Korea

The following post was originally published on June 14, 2015. We are republishing after news that North Korea lost one of its submarines at sea.

The admirals of the Soviet Union declared North Korea’s prize submarine to be obsolete back in 1961, and Western experts stubbornly point out its inability to sink enemy vessels.

But Kim Jong-un, the “Supreme Leader” of North Korea, offered navigation tips and issued stern battle orders during a proud tour of a Romeo class submarine of the People’s Navy.

Designed in the 1950s, the vessel was in production for the Soviet Union for only 48 months until being succeeded by nuclear-powered submarines 53 years ago.

Every other navy in the world then gave up on the Romeo, with its noisy and easily detectable diesel engine — apart, that is, from North Korea’s. The country has 20 Romeo class boats, comprising almost a third of its submarine fleet.

During his visit, Mr Kim mounted the vessel’s conning tower and went on a short voyage, during which the official news agency reported that the multi-talented leader “taught” the submarine’s captain a “good method of navigation”.

Mr Kim also urged his commanders to think “only” of “battles” and “spur combat preparations”.

Any captain of a Romeo class submarine might, however, view hostilities with trepidation.

The boats carry Yu-4 torpedoes, a Chinese-made weapon dating from the 1960s with a range of four miles.

The Los Angeles Class nuclear-powered attack submarines of the US Navy, meanwhile, carry Harpoon missiles that can sink a ship 150 miles away.

The North Korean vessel is a “basic” model with “virtually no anti-submarine performance”, says IHS Jane’s Fighting Ships.

This means the Romeo might try damaging a ship — provided it happens to be less than four miles away — but it would be helpless against an enemy submarine trying to send it to the bottom.

At least one North Korean submarine has gone to the bottom without any help from the country’s enemies.

A Romeo class boat sank in an apparent accident in 1985.

Of North Korea’s 20 submarines in this category, seven were supplied by China between 1973 and 1975 and the rest built in the country’s own shipyards between 1976 and 1995.

More than three decades after the Soviet Union had stopped making the vessel — and after it had been phased out by the navies of Syria, Algeria and China — North Korea was still producing its own version of the Romeo.

Mr Kim’s decision to pay a high profile visit seems at odds with the official doctrine of the so-called People’s Navy, which stresses the importance of camouflage and concealment.

So seriously were these tasks taken that 2004 was officially declared the “Year of Camouflage”.

On the 10th anniversary of that occasion, however, Mr Kim allowed photographs of the unlikely pride of his fleet to be released to the world.

Cdre Stephen Saunders, the editor of IHS Jane’s Fighting Ships, summed up: “The fact that the Dear Successor is spending time on what, in any other navy, would be an obsolete submarine tells its own story.”

SEE ALSO: US: North Korea lost one of its submarines, and we guess it just sank

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NOW WATCH: You are considered a traitor for having dusty photos of the leaders in North Korea

Operation Foal Eagle 2016, which runs from March 7 to April 30, is a massive joint US-South Korean military exercise held in North Korea's backyard.

The operation runs contemporaneously as another US military exercise in South Korea, Operation Key Resolve, which starts March 7 and ends March 18.

The operations in total involve about 17,000 US troops, along with an astonishing 300,000 of their South Korean counterparts.

North Korea views the drills as aggressive and denounces them each year.

Pyongyang has ratcheted up the rhetoric and warned that its armed forces "holding tightly the arms to annihilate the enemies with towering hatred for them are waiting for the dignified Supreme Command to issue an order to launch a preemptive strike of justice."

On March 9, North Korea launched two ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan. And on Monday, Pyongyang claimed it could wipe out Manhattan with a nuclear bomb. These photos highlight the exercises going on in South Korea:

SEE ALSO: Branch by branch, a look at North Korea's massive military

Operation Foal Eagle is carried out in the spirit of the 1953 South Korea-US Mutual Defense Treaty, which obligates the US to intervene if the north ever invaded South Korea again.

The bilateral exercise is conducted by South Korea and the US. It allows the two nations to practice land, air, and naval operations.

The drill features the use of smoke screens during an amphibious invasion ...

The armed forces of the US and South Korea began their annual military exercise known as Operation Foal Eagle. Over the weekend, soldiers from the two countries, joined by personnel from Australia and New Zealand, staged an assault on a beach on South Korea's southeastern coast. 

The exercise is scheduled to last through April 30. It was condemned by the North Korean military, which said the operation is perceived as a threat. 

Produced by Graham Flanagan

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SEE ALSO: Incredible photos from the military exercise that is North Korea's worst nightmare

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SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would soon conduct a nuclear warhead test and test launch ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the official KCNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

Kim made the comments as he supervised a successful simulated test of atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile that measured the "thermodynamic structural stability of newly-developed heat-resisting materials," KCNA said.

"Declaring that a nuclear warhead explosion test and a test-fire of several kinds of ballistic rockets able to carry nuclear warheads will be conducted in a short time to further enhance the reliance of nuclear attack capability, he (Kim) instructed the relevant section to make prearrangement for them to the last detail," the agency said.

The report comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula as South Korean and U.S. troops stage annual military exercises that Seoul has described as the largest ever. The North has issued belligerent statements almost daily, after coming under new United Nations sanctions.

The United Nations Security Council imposed a new resolution to tighten sanctions against the North after a nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket last month.

U.S. and South Korean experts have said the general consensus was that North Korea had not yet successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead to be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile. More crucially, the consensus is that there have been no tests to prove it has mastered the re-entry technology needed to bring a payload back into the atmosphere.

Kim said last week that his country had indeed miniaturized a nuclear warhead, however.

The North, which has conducted four nuclear tests, also claims to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb in January, but most experts said the blast was too small to back up the assertion.

The North also says the satellites it has launched into orbit are functioning successfully, although that has never been independently verified.

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Editing by Tom Brown)

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SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's supreme court sentenced American student Otto Warmbier, who was arrested while visiting the country, to 15 years of hard labor on Wednesday for crimes against the state.

Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia student, was detained in January for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel in Pyongyang, North Korean media said previously.

"The accused confessed to the serious offense against the DPRK he had committed, pursuant to the U.S. government's hostile policy toward it, in a bid to impair the unity of its people after entering it as a tourist," the state-controlled KCNA news agency reported, using the acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Human Rights Watch condemned the sentence handed down to the student from Wyoming, Ohio. Japan's Kyodo news agency published a picture of Warmbier being led from the courtroom by two uniformed guards, with his head bowed, but visibly distressed.

"North Korea's sentencing of Otto Warmbier to 15 years hard labor for a college-style prank is outrageous and shocking, and should not be permitted to stand," Phil Robertson, deputy director of HRW's Asia division, said in an emailed statement.

Warmbier's defense attorney said the gravity of his crime was such that he would not be able to pay even with his death but proposed to the court a sentence that is reduced from the prosecution's request of a life sentence, KCNA said.

Last month, Warmbier told a media conference in Pyongyang that his crime was "very severe and pre-planned."

He was at the end of a five-day New Year's group tour of North Korea when he was delayed at airport immigration before being taken away by officials, according to the tour operator that had arranged the trip.

Warmbier's sentencing comes as North Korea is increasingly isolated, with the U.N. Security Council imposing tough new resolutions earlier this month following the North's January nuclear test and last month's long-range rocket launch.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this week said the North would soon test a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, in what would be a direct violation of U.N. resolutions backed by its chief ally, China.

North Korea has a long history of detaining foreigners and has used jailed Americans in the past to extract high-profile visits from the United States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.

North Korea is also holding a Korean-Canadian Christian pastor it sentenced to hard labor for life in December for subversion. The North is also holding a Korean American and three South Korean nationals.

It has previously handed down lengthy sentences to foreigners before freeing them.

In 2014, North Korea released three detained Americans.

Former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who had previously traveled to North Korea, met the North's ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday to press for the release of Warmbier, the New York Times reported.

"I urged the humanitarian release of Otto, and they agreed to convey our request," Richardson was quoted as saying.

While most tourists to North Korea are from China, roughly 6,000 Westerners visit annually, though the United States and Canada advise against it. Most visitors are curious about life in the reclusive state and ignore critics who say their dollars prop up a repressive regime.

(Additional reporting by James Pearson; Editing by Tony Munroe and Simon Cameron-Moore)

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The discovery came during my recent tour of Rason in North Korea, at the time of the 2013 Korean Crisis. The DPRK was - potentially - poised on the brink of nuclear war with the South, with Japan, the US, et al., and I was hanging out in a small port town somewhere near the Russian border.

As is generally the case with tours to North Korea, I had visited as a part of a group. However, this was no ordinary group. Rather than offering the tour to members of the public, the team at Young Pioneer Tours were putting on a 'staff outing' of sorts... and I'd been invited along for the ride.

In true Korean style, YPT's counterpoints in the DPRK felt obliged to match this show of seniority (as they perceived it) by sending one of their own high-ranking officials to lead our group: a 'Mr Kim,' from North Korea's own Ministry of Foreign Affairs [1].

The details of the tour - as well as my own reflections on visiting the country at a time of seemingly imminent war - are the subject of my post on the 2013 Korean Crisis. What follows here, are the parts I left out.

RASON MARKET

Having a high-ranking North Korean official in our team unlocked doors for us; doors which usually remained firmly closed to tourists. On the standard North Korea tour package, a group will be allotted two Korean guides. It's their job to keep you in line - a job which they usually handle with a cheerful yet firm approach:

Don't go in there. 
Don't photograph this. 

I can't answer that... but wouldn't you rather hear about our Dear Leader's birthday celebrations?

Fearful of getting into trouble with their superiors, most North Korean guides err on the side of caution. They'll impose a blanket ban of no photography from the tour bus, and if there's ever any doubt the answer will invariably be "no."

Our Mr Kim was able to speak with confidence on behalf of the nation, though. When he answered in the negative it was absolute; but there were plenty of other occasions when he'd be able to flash his ID card, or call ahead to authorise our entry into restricted areas.

The first of these restricted areas we were to visit was the local bank.

As we arrived, two Korean girls in make-up and high heels were struggling to carry a sports bag, heavy with banknotes, to the back of a waiting taxi. Inside the building security seemed slim, and rather than through a reinforced glass counter, business was conducted in one of a series of simple offices.

We queued up to change our Chinese Yuan into the local currency: the North Korean Won. I was aware just how unusual this was; the vast majority of tourists in the DPRK will spend Chinese or US currency, and are restricted from handling (or even seeing) the local notes. With an exchange rate of roughly ₩1,450 to £1 (or ₩900 to $1), the notes were numbered into the thousands. Different denominations bore the face of President Kim Il-sung, an image of the president's birthplace at Mangyongdae-guyok, the Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang and, on the ₩200 banknote, a likeness of mythical flying horse, Chollima.

Carrying roughly one quarter of a million Won between us, we headed down to the market. Rason's market has been off-limits to tourists for many years now, after an incident in which a Chinese tourist was pick pocketed. He had reported the theft to his embassy, and pushed for recompense from the North Korean tourism industry; and as a result of the international drama which followed, North Korea decided it would be simpler not to let foreigners enter the market at all.

Mr Kim made a few calls, and pretty soon we were heading inside. We were urged to leave our wallets on the bus, instead taking a handful of local banknotes concealed in an inside pocket. Cameras were also strictly forbidden. I'm not sure exactly how Mr Kim got us inside, or how legitimate our visit was - but he made it very clear that there was to be no evidence of our expedition.

The market was a sprawling maze of wooden tables, overflowing with everything from fruit to hand tools. Immediately upon our entrance, a wave seemed to move through the crowd as several hundred pairs of eyes turned to assess the intrusion.

If the streets of Pyongyang and other North Korean cities may appear empty, even desolate at times, this place was the exact opposite... and I was struck by the sense of having stumbled across that fabled thing which seems so hopelessly impossible to find: the 'real' North Korea.

As our group separated, moved through the stalls and began to mingle with the bemused locals, our Korean guides floated about us like owls on speed. It's impossible to guess the punishment that would await them (and possibly, by association, their families) were they to lose sight of their Western wards in this forbidden location. Luckily for them however, we didn't exactly blend in.

It was interesting to see the range of reactions that our presence elicited from the unsuspecting people of North Korea. Some gasped in shock, covering their mouths and nudging their friends to look at us; children waved, giggled, shouted "hello" and then ran away; vendors called and beckoned us to browse their wares. Everywhere I looked there was a movement of heads turning quickly away - everybody here wanted a good look at the strangers, but most couldn't hold our gaze.

One elderly man in a tired military uniform followed us through the market, scowling from a distance. Several times I felt tiny hands patting at my trouser pockets, then turned, to see dirty-faced children peering out from the crowds. On one occasion I was confronted by an actual beggar - it's still the first and only time I've seen a North Korean ask a foreigner for money, and something which the DPRK leadership does its absolute best to stamp out.

I yearned in pain for my camera, my shutter finger itching like a phantom limb.

At one point we bumped into a few of the girls from the massage parlour we'd visited in Rason. They stopped browsing to chat with us, and, for just the briefest of moments, I could almost have believed this wasn't the strangest place I had ever been.

Things were to get a whole lot stranger though, as we approached the covered stalls at the heart of the market. While the outer yard had been stocked with fruits, vegetables and all manner of seafood, Rason's indoor market is a repository for every kind of bric-a-brac you could care to think of... and most of it imported from China.

Shoes, toys, make-up, lighters, DIY tools that look around 40 years old, clothing, military uniforms (which we were forbidden from buying), spices, chocolates, soft drinks, dried noodles, bottled spirits, beer and a whole aisle lined with mounds of dry, hand-picked tobacco.

We were just walking past the tobacco sellers when we spotted another stall ahead, piled high with mounds of green rather than brown plant matter. It turned out to be exactly what we first suspected: a veritable mountain of marijuana.

In the name of scientific enquiry, it seemed appropriate to buy some... and the little old ladies running the stall were happy to load us up with plastic bags full of the stuff, charging us roughly £0.50 each.

As it turns out the "special plant," as they refer to it here, is completely legal. We decided to test the theory, purchasing papers from another stall before rolling up and lighting comically oversized joints right there in the middle of the crowded market.

Bizarre as the situation was, it seemed a reasonably safe move - and with several hundred people already staring at us, we weren't going to feel any more paranoid than we already were.

At another stall we bought live spider crabs for our dinner, before leaving the market to continue the grand tour of Rason - with just one difference. From this point onwards, every time our group was walking on the street, sat in a park or being shown around some monument or other, there would be at least two fat joints being passed around.

Later that day, we visited a traditional Korean pagoda situated in a nearby village.

"This monument celebrates the fact that our dear leader Kim Jong-il stayed in this very building during one of his visits to Rason," our Korean guide was telling us.

"Far out," someone mumbled in reply.

ILLEGAL DRUGS IN NORTH KOREA

It has been reported elsewhere that the DPRK has a growing problem with crystal meth. Being relatively cheap and straightforward to produce, it seems to be the hard drug of choice in North Korea.

Cannabis on the other hand, is not even considered a drug. Known in Korean as "ip tambae," meaning "leaf tobacco," it is grown in large plantations before being handpicked and dried for consumption. Enjoyed primarily by the working class and service industries, this 'special plant' is praised for its therapeutic properties. It's often promoted as a natural and healthy way to relax, as well as soothing aches and pains resulting from hard physical work or active military service.

The plant grows abundantly on the Korean peninsula, though most of the cannabis available to buy from local markets is formally cultivated in large plots. The painstaking procedure is conducted entirely by hand - creating countless new jobs in the process.

Of course, cynics such as myself might also note that a population which spends half its time stoned is far less likely to rise up in revolt - and so it's possible to argue that the legal status of this drug serves political as well as cultural purposes.

However, before you go thinking that Pyongyang is the next Amsterdam, it should be noted that the marijuana in North Korea is not very strong. This is cannabis which has been grown naturally in mountainside fields. While the flavour's all there, it'll take a few well-packed joints before one starts to feel anything approaching the effect typical of a Western crop. That said, at prices like these some might not consider this a problem.

GETTING HIGH ON THE BAD TIMES

That night we settled down for a meal at a private dining room in the Kum Yong Company Restaurant.

It's one of Rason's tourist-friendly eateries, by which I mean that the service and surroundings had been so carefully and thoroughly Westernised, as to give little or no impression of how real North Koreans live. I guess the same could be said for five-star hotels the world over, though.

One member of the group was celebrating a birthday, and the cake was the first thing to reach our table. This was followed by the usual selection of hot and cold platters (kimchi, salad, fried eggs, battered meat and bean sprouts) while the kitchen prepared the crabs we had bought from the market earlier.

All this time we were rolling joint after joint, without tobacco, and the air in the room was thick with sweet, herbal fumes. In fact, coming back from a trip to the facilities I was almost unable to find my chair again - until my eyes grew accustomed to the severely reduced visibility.

Once or twice the waitress came by to collect plates, and, coughing, made mock gestures of trying to sweep the clouds away with her hands. She didn't mind at all, but rather seemed perplexed how something so commonplace could cause such unprecedented excitement.

In the corner of the room, a small television set was doing all it could to keep us abreast of important current affairs. The news presenter - an impassioned middle-aged woman with immaculate hair - was talking about a potential attack from South Korea, about US manoeuvres on the Korean Peninsula. Suddenly I remembered that I was in a country threatening to launch nuclear warheads against its neighbours, and that the whole world was holding its breath to see what the next days would bring.

The news programme came to an end, and was replaced by a film in which a Korean girl roamed the mountains in a fierce storm, looking for her lost goats. The waitress brought more beers, shots of the local rice wine known as Soju, and someone passed me a joint. I had already forgotten about the nuclear war.

It wasn't until the next evening - the last night of our tour - that Mr Kim decided to join us for a smoke.

We were sat around drinking beers in a hotel bar, just across the town square from our own lodgings. Here the waitresses were taking it in turns to sing for us, clutching cheap Chinese microphones as they performed note-perfect renditions of one (party-approved) karaoke classic after another. Many of these songs had once been written to celebrate the anniversary of a military victory... while each of the North Korean leaders is given their own orchestral theme (check out the Song of General Kim Jong-un, for example).

It was a pop song called Whistle that really got stuck in my head though, as it seemed to be on constant cycle during our trip - playing in shops, restaurants and offices. That evening I'm sure we heard it at least half a dozen times, and the melody would come back to haunt my dreams for weeks to come.

Sat around a long wooden table, we were drinking beer with our Korean guides - who up until this point had eschewed the weed.

They seemed to be ever-so-slightly uncomfortable with our discovery of their special plant; no doubt aware of its legal status in our own countries, it was their job to make sure we saw a positive representation of the DPRK. I don't think they had planned on chaperoning a giggling pack of red-eyed imbeciles around their country's proud military monuments.

I sat next to Mr Kim, who, dressed in his usual dark suit and glasses, looked every part the intelligence officer. He was snacking on strips of dried fish to accompany his beer, and he offered me some. By way of a polite gesture I offered him a joint in return, very much expecting him to refuse it. Instead he smiled, winked, and put his arm round my shoulder as he started puffing away on the fat paper cone.

Things got even more bizarre when the Russians arrived - a group of dock workers from the Vladivostok region, currently on leave in Rason and keen to get some alcohol inside them. One of my last memories of the evening is of knocking back large tumblers of Korean vodka with a walking stereotype of a man; he had the arms and chest of a bear, a square head topped with a white crew cut and a well manicured 'Uncle Joe' moustache... as well as a superhuman thirst for vodka.

The first time I visited North Korea I saw the famous monuments in Pyongyang, walked along the Demilitarized Zone in the south, but remained very much aware of my distance from the world around me; I often felt as though trapped inside a bubble, which prevented me from any kind of real interaction.

Here in the rural northeast however, far removed from the leader's watchful gaze, things are very different. Chinese and even Russian contractors explore at their leisure, while Western tour groups are allowed far more freedom than anywhere else in the country.

My extra-curricular activities at Rason's bank, its market and its bars, were a window onto another side of life in the DPRK; and, while they often painted a picture of poverty and dependency, nevertheless it was a refreshingly honest experience compared to the theatrics and misdirection so typical of tours to North Korea.

[1] Our high-ranking friend's name was not, in fact, 'Kim'. As he allowed us to visit numerous restricted locations, I felt it better not to implicate him too closely in this report. Considering almost a third of all North Koreans have the family name 'Kim' however, this seemed a reasonable substitute.

SEE ALSO: Ever Wonder What It's Like Getting Coffee In North Korea?

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NOW WATCH: IAN BREMMER: Greece is headed for a humanitarian disaster

The U.S. student sentenced to 15 years of hard labor by North Korea's supreme court was convicted for trying to steal a banner invoking former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, state media footage of the trial indicates.

The court sentenced the student, Otto Warmbier, on Wednesday for "crimes against the state," North Korean media reported.

The United States condemned the punishment as politically motivated and called on North Korea to pardon the University of Virginia student from Wyoming, Ohio, and release him on humanitarian grounds.

The sentencing came as North Korea is increasingly isolated and facing tough new U.N. resolutions following a nuclear test in January and a rocket launch last month. A White House spokesman said it was "increasingly clear" North Korea sought to use U.S. citizens as pawns to pursue a political agenda.

North Korean state media said Warmbier had tried to steal an item bearing a political slogan. A state media picture showed a banner, presented as evidence during his one-hour trial, appearing to bear a slogan extolling the country's late leader.

Although the name was censored in the photograph, it is likely the slogan read: "Let's arm ourselves strongly with Kim Jong Il patriotism!"

The phrase "Kim Jong Il Patriotism" was used heavily to glorify the late leader after he died in 2011. The slogan has been described by his son and successor, Kim Jong Un, as the "crystallization of socialist patriotism".

Images and references to North Korea's leaders, who are treated with almost god-like status in propaganda, are sacrosanct.

Ordinary North Koreans are required to keep and carefully maintain portraits of former leaders Kim Jong Il and his father, Kim Il Sung. A special large, bold typeface is used when their names are printed.

The court showed still CCTV images of Warmbier, 21, entering a staff-only part of the Yanggakdo International Hotel, which towers above the capital, Pyongyang, from an island in the middle of the Taedong River.

Warmbier was at the end of a five-day group tour when he was stopped at the airport and taken away, according to the tour operator that arranged the trip.

In a statement last month, Warmbier confessed to "severe crimes" against the state.

Footage and fingerprints 

Warmbier entered the restricted area of the hotel in the early hours of Jan. 1, according to a time stamp on a CCTV image used as part of witness testimony to identify Warmbier.

That witness was Warmbier's North Korean tour guide, identified as Mr Byon, sources who recognized him confirmed to Reuters after studying the footage.

The shirt and boots worn by Warmbier at the time along with his passport, mobile phone and an ID card were also given as evidence in the trial, the footage showed.

"When I got off work, there was nothing amiss," a second witness, apparently a hotel staff member, told the court.

"But when I returned, I thought someone had deliberately taken the slogan down, so I mobilized security to prevent damage to it and reported it to the authorities."

The court showed images on a flat screen showing efforts to match fingerprints from the banner with Warmbier's fingerprints.

Photos of the trial showed Warmbier marking copies of indictment and sentencing documents with red ink on his thumb.

As he was led from the court in handcuffs, Warmbier appeared to turn to Swedish ambassador to North Korea Torkel Stiernlöf, who was present at the trial, and ask him to "keep working" on his case, according to the footage.

The United States does not have diplomatic relations with North Korea and is represented in consular matters there by the Swedish embassy.

North Korea has a long history of detaining foreigners and has used jailed Americans in the past to extract high-profile visits from the United States to secure their release. 

(Editing by Tony Munroe, Robert Birsel)

SEE ALSO: Incredible photos from the military exercise that is North Korea's worst nightmare

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SEOUL (Reuters) — North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Friday that flew about 800 km (500 miles) off its east coast into the sea, South Korea's military said, days after fresh U.S. sanctions were imposed on the isolated state.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the missile was likely a medium-range Rodong-missile.

The launch comes amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula with the North remaining defiant in the face of the U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed earlier in the month in response to a nuclear test conducted in January.

The missile was launched from an area near the west coast north of the capital, Pyongyang, flying across the peninsular and into the sea off the east coast early Friday morning, the South's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

It did not confirm the type of the missile. But 800 km was likely beyond the range of most short-range missiles in the North's arsenal.

North Korea last test fired medium-range missiles in 2014.

The North fired two short-range missiles last week into the sea off its east coast and its leader Kim Jong Un ordered more nuclear weapons test and missile tests to improve attack capability.

North Korea often fires missiles at periods of tension on the Korean peninsula or when it comes under pressure to curb its defiance and abandon its weapons program.

New U.S. sanctions on Pyongyang were issued on Wednesday aiming to expand U.S. blockade against the isolated state by blacklisting individuals and entities that deal with the North's economy.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in Jan. 6 and launched a long-range rocket on Feb. 7 in defiance of existing U.N. Security Council resolutions.

On Wednesday, North Korea's supreme court sentenced a visiting American student to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the state, a punishment Washington condemned as politically motivated.

Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park. Editing by Lincoln Feast.

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North Korea fired at least one ballistic missile which flew about 800 km (500 miles) before hitting the sea off its east coast, South Korea's military said on Friday, as the isolated state stepped up its defiance of tough new U.N. and U.S. sanctions.

A U.S. official told Reuters in Washington it appeared to be a medium-range missile fired from a road-mobile launcher. That would mark North Korea's first test of a medium-range missile, capable of reaching Japan, since 2014.

The missile, launched from north of the capital, Pyongyang, flew across the peninsula and into the sea off the east coast early Friday morning, South Korea's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

It appeared the North may have fired a second missile soon after from the same region, with a projectile disappearing from radar at an altitude of about 17 km, the statement said.

South Korea did not confirm the type of the missiles. But 800 km was likely beyond the range of most short-range missiles in North Korea's arsenal. The North's Rodong missile has an estimated maximum range of 1,300 km, according to the South's defense ministry.

Friday's launch quickly provoked a barrage of criticism and appeals.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang urged North Korea to abide by U.N. resolutions and not do anything to exacerbate tensions.

The U.S. State Department in a statement urged North Korea to focus on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations.

Japan lodged a protest with North Korea through its embassy in Beijing, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament.

"Japan strongly demands North Korea to exercise self-restraint and will take all necessary measures, such as warning and surveillance activity, to be able to respond to any situations," Abe said.

South Korea's Unification Ministry said Pyongyang should focus on improving the lives of its people and that provocative actions would help nothing.

NUCLEAR WARHEADS

North Korea often fires missiles during periods of tension on the Korean peninsula or when it comes under pressure to curb its defiance and abandon its weapons programs.

Last week, the North fired two short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast and its leader Kim Jong Un ordered more nuclear weapons tests and missile tests.

That came after North Korean media said the North had miniaturized nuclear warheads to fit on ballistic missiles and quoted Kim as calling upon the military to prepare for a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" against the United States and South Korea.

U.S. President Barack Obama imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Wednesday over its nuclear test and satellite launch. The sanctions freeze North Korean government assets in the United States, bans U.S. exports to, or investment in, North Korea, and expands a U.S. blacklist to anyone - including non-Americans - who deal with North Korea.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and launched a long-range rocket on Feb. 7 in defiance of existing U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The North has reacted angrily to annual joint military drills by U.S. and South Korean troops that began on March 7, calling the exercises "nuclear war moves" and threatening to wipe out its enemies.

The U.S. and South Korea remain technically at war with the North because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armed truce instead of a peace agreement. Over the last several weeks, the two Koreas have suspended economic ties over the mounting tensions.

South Korea and U.S. officials this month began discussions on deploying the advanced anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system to the U.S. military in the South, despite Chinese and Russian objections.

On Wednesday, North Korea's supreme court sentenced a visiting American student to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the state, a punishment Washington condemned as politically motivated.

 (Additional reporting by Tokyo newsroom, Phil Stewart in Washington and Megha Rajagopalan in Beijing; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

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NOW WATCH: Meet THAAD: America’s answer to North Korean threats

North Korea has released a grainy video that it claims shows American student Otto Warmbler attempting to steal a propaganda banner from a hotel – an act which saw him being handed 15 years hard labour.

The short clip at the Yanggakdo International Hotel in Pyongyang shows an unidentifiable figure removing a sign from a wall before placing it on the floor.

The banner in the hotel apparently says: "Let's arm ourselves strongly with Kim Jong-il patriotism", referring to the isolated state’s late leader, who died in 2011.

The short security camera footage could not be verified, and the clip shows a brightly lit corridor in the hotel supposedly in the early hours of January 1st – when Mr Warmbler was accused of taking the sign.

North Korea regularly blacks out many buildings because of resource shortages in the country.

Mr Warmbler was arrested as he attempted to leave the country in January and later made a televised “confession” saying that he had taken the sign to bring back as a “trophy”.

The 21-year-old student, who had visited the isolated state as a tourist, had said during his confession that he had tried to steal the banner for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church.

North Korean state news agency KCNA has earlier said the University of Virginia student’s offence was "pursuant to the US government's hostile policy" and that he was convicted under an article of the criminal code dealing with subversion. 

Foreigners are often detained in North Korea, where they are used by Pyongyang to exert diplomatic pressure.

However, the rogue state has often imposed stiff sentences before releasing prisoners, and many of those who have confessed later say they were forced to do so.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been increasing after Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test in January which was followed by a rocket launch last month.

This article was written by Neil Connor video source YouTube from The Daily Telegraph and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

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The distraught pleadings of the American college student sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in a prison in North Korea for “crimes against the state” are sobering when considering the details of what such punishment normally entails.

The pariah state ruled three days ago that Otto Warmbier, 21, from Cincinnati, Ohio, was guilty of a heinous political crime committed with the “tacit connivance of the US government and its manipulation” and deserved harsh treatment.

The crime the University of Virginia commerce student had allegedly carried out was the petty theft of a political propaganda poster from his vacation hotel in Pyongyang.

But hard labour in North Korean political prison camps, which were first set up in the late 1940s or early 1950s, can be doled out as punishment for the slightest perceived dissent towards the totalitarian ruling dynasty.

Korean citizens who have survived the ordeal and escaped the regime emerge with harrowing tales of the compatriots and family members who didn’t make it — most killed off by the cruel combination of prolonged near-starvation and slavish forced labour.

“Conditions are horrific. People are worked for 14, 15 or 16 hours every day with just a handful of corn to live on and they are intentionally starved and worked to death,” said Suzanne Scholte, chairman of the North Korea freedom coalition, a group of organizations based in Washington DC assisting defectors and campaigning for improved human rights.

“Torture is common, there is no medical aid and the sanitation is horrible. They wear the torn uniforms of old prisoners and sleep crammed together in a room.”

North Korea denies the existence of vast political prison camps, but according to a 2014 UN special commission report, a combination of satellite imagery and extensive human testimony proves they are still in operation and are used to perpetrate “unspeakable atrocities” on hapless citizens, who simply disappear with no word to their families even if they subsequently die in detention.

The UN reported systematic starvation, torture, rape and many executions at such camps, which hold an estimated total of 80,000 to 120,000 prisoners in the most wretched conditions.

“The commission estimates that hundreds of thousands of political prisoners have perished in these camps over the past five decades,” the report said.

A 2009 legal report from South Korea cited prisoners being fed starvation rations of a few ounces of rotten corn and some kind of thin “salt soup”.

“They lose their teeth, their gums turn black, their bones weaken and, as they age, they hunch over at the waist ... they live and die in rags, without soap, socks or underwear,” the Washington Post reported at the time.

Former prisoners sentenced to just 18 months hard labour recalled fellow inmates not surviving amid the constant beatings and malnutrition. They often work in the fields, logging in forests, down mines with no safety measures or crude factories where injuries are rampant, Scholte said.

And in another account, a man who was arrested as a teenager trying to sneak out of North Korea, Hyuk Kim, recalled subsisting at a lower-level labour camp by catching rats, drying them out and eating the flesh raw.

“If you tried to cook the rats, the guards would smell the meat or fire, catch you and beat you mercilessly,” the 33-year-old defector later said.

Campaigners said US student Warmbier would undoubtedly be terrified of his prospects. He has been detained by the North Korean authorities since late January and has had no contact with his parents back home in Ohio.

Although Kim Jong-un is unpredictable, Scholte said it is unlikely the young American would end up doing years of hard labour in the country’s worst camps.

“This student will not be sent to one of these death camps because they cannot let the world know that they are committing these atrocities. They may put him to work in a labour camp but I would suspect for six months or, I hope, less than a year. They are going to use him and it will depend how much the US pushes the regime to release him,” she said.

Scholte is taking part in a panel at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday, where North Korean women who have survived imprisonment and the daily deprivations and abuses of ordinary life in the country are scheduled to relate their experiences to the US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, and other leading figures.

American Kenneth Bae was released by North Korea in November 2014 after almost two years imprisoned by the regime, for evangelizing Christianity in the country, which is banned. He was forced to do agricultural labour daily and suffered numerous health and psychological problems, but returned home having been spared the bulk of his 15-year sentence.

John Sifton, Asia policy director for Human Rights Watch, said North Korea’s actions were becoming increasingly unpredictable but praised the latest sanctions agreed by the US on Wednesday because they are designed to protest not just North Korea’s nuclear weapons aggression but also its despicable human rights record, he said.

“It’s a nightmare there — if you are really in trouble you get sent to a camp where you will never come out. It’s astonishing in 2016 that this is still going on. However, this student is useful to the North Korean regime and they may not want to work him to death as they do their own citizens,” he said.

SEE ALSO: North Korea releases video that it says shows the crime that led an American student to be sentenced to 15 years of hard labor

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NOW WATCH: Inside Korean dog farms — where millions are sold as meat or to illegal fighting rings

North Korea fired five short-range projectiles into the sea off its east coast on Monday, South Korea's military said, amid heightened tension over the isolated country's nuclear and rocket programs.

The unidentified projectiles were launched from south of the city of Hamhung and flew about 200 km (120 miles), landing in waters east of North Korea, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

On Friday, North Korea fired two mid-range ballistic missiles into the sea in defiance of tough new U.N. and U.S. sanctions slapped on the country following nuclear and rocket tests earlier this year.

In recent weeks, North Korea has stepped up its bellicose rhetoric, threatening pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Washington and Seoul and firing short-range missiles and artillery into the sea.

The North protests annual ongoing joint U.S.-South Korea military drills.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said last week that the country would soon test a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads in what would be a direct violation of U.N. resolutions that have the backing of Pyongyang's chief ally, China.

SEE ALSO: 'They are intentionally starved and worked to death': The horrific conditions in North Korean labor camps

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NOW WATCH: This is what North Korea's worst nightmare looks like

SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea, locked for weeks in exchanges of angry rhetoric and heightened military readiness, traded more threats on Friday, with Pyongyang saying its military had trained to attack Seoul's presidential Blue House.

Isolated North Korea is renowned for its saber-rattling, and often makes threats of attack and even annihilation against South Korea and the United States.

However, its tone has been especially belligerent in recent weeks and personally aimed at South Korean President Park Geun-hye following her warnings of regime collapse in Pyongyang after it conducted a nuclear test and rocket launch earlier this year.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un guided what state media said on Friday was the North's largest ever exercise of long-range artillery training, with a simulated attack on South Korea's presidential and government offices.

Kim ordered his military to be on high alert "so that it may mercilessly pound the reactionary ruling machines in Seoul, the cesspool of evils, and advance to accomplish the historic cause of national reunification, once it receives an order for attack," the official KCNA news agency said.

Tensions have been high on the Korean peninsula since the North conducted a nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February, which prompted new sanctions earlier this month by the United Nations Security Council. Annual U.S.-South Korea military exercises, which are ongoing, have added to the jitters.

The tensions also come ahead of a rare congress of the North's ruling Workers' Party in May. Some analysts expects Kim to claim a signature achievement, such as another nuclear test, in the run-up to the congress as he looks to bolster his stature at home.

Park warned the North to end provocative actions and "escape from the illusion" that it will benefit from nuclear armament, ordering her country's military to maintain "maximum combat power."

"Reckless provocation will be the road to destruction for the North's regime," Park said at an anniversary event for the 2010 sinking of a naval ship that killed 46 people. The South blames the sinking on a torpedo attack by the North, which denies any role.

The North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, saying that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb although many experts doubt the claim.

But some U.S. intelligence analysts now believe the North "probably" possesses a miniaturized nuclear warhead, CNN reported on Friday, citing several unnamed U.S. officials, although the assessment is not the consensus view of the U.S. government.

But even those officials say they still do not know if such a device would actually work, CNN said. 

Rocket experts have said the North has yet to demonstrate it can launch a ballistic missile mounted with a nuclear warhead that can sustain the stress of atmospheric re-entry and then be guided to hit a target with reliability. 

(Editing by Tony Munroe and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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SEOUL — A Korean-American man detained in North Korea has confessed to stealing military secrets and plotting subversion with South Koreans, the North's official news agency and foreign media reported on Friday.

North Korea, which has been criticized for its human-rights record, has in the past used detained Americans to extract high-profile visits from the US, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.

Kim Dong Chul, who has previously said he was a naturalized American citizen and was arrested in North Korea in October, admitted to committing "unpardonable espionage" under the direction of the US and South Korean governments and deeply apologized for his crimes, the North's KCNA news agency said.

"The extraordinary crime I committed was defaming and insulting the republic's highest dignity and its system and spreading false propaganda aimed at breaking down its solidarity," KCNA quoted Kim as saying.

A source in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang told Reuters that diplomats were notified in the morning of the confession and Kim's comments were similar to the recent confession of another American being held there, Otto Warmbier.

Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor this month for trying to steal a propaganda banner. The North is also holding a Korean-Canadian Christian pastor, who is serving a life sentence for subversion.

Kim apologized for trying to steal military and state secrets in collusion with South Koreans, and he said he was paid for doing it. He described the acts as aimed at overthrowing the North Korean regime, KCNA said.

Photographs issued by the North's state news agency showed Kim bowing and wiping away tears.

Japan's Kyodo news agency and China's Xinhua news agency also reported Kim's meeting with media outlets in Pyongyang where he confessed to anti-state activities.

Memory sticks

Kim spoke of making contacts with South Koreans to pass secret information contained in USB memory sticks and also images state media said were damaging to the North on data storage cards.

Outside information is strictly controlled in North Korea, and ordinary people there often use USB sticks or other portable memory drives to share foreign media.

An official introducing Kim to the media began the meeting by praising North Korea's nuclear achievements and its leader, Kim Jong Un, said the source in Pyongyang, who had direct knowledge of the meeting.

A defector from the North previously told Reuters that Kim was a Christian pastor who had worked in China and the US and sent medical aid into the North.

CNN reported in January that Kim was 60 and from Fairfax, Virginia, and that he said he had spied on behalf of South Korea.

Kim told media he was born in Seoul in 1953 and moved to the US when he was 19. He said he set up a business in the North Korean special economic zone of Rason in 2008, KCNA said.

He said his two daughters lived in New York and he had siblings in South Korea, it said.

North Korea faces the prospect of further international isolation after the UN Security Council imposed new sanctions after its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February.

(Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

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This week, representatives of Western-backed Syrian opposition delegation in Geneva told Russian state media that President Bashar al-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 (HNC) to Syrian peace talks in the Swiss city, reportedly told Tass news agency on 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 (SOHR), 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.

"The North Koreans have been involved with Syria since the late-1960s," says Joseph S. Bermudez Jr, a contributor to 38 North, an analysis website affiliated with the U.S.-Korea Institute at John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. That involvement included providing advisers and air defense troops immediately after the 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel, Bermudez says, and stretches to the modern era, when North Korea is believed to have provided technology used to help build the secret al-Kibar nuclear site in Syria, which was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in 2007.

"Syria is one of North Korea's longest standing and deepest political and military relationships," Andrea Berger of the Royal United Services Institute adds. In a report published last year, Berger had described how the relationship was originally based upon military training but eventually graduated to weapons sales, including ballistic missiles and chemical weapons.

Remarkably, the relationship between North Korea and Syria does appear to have survived to the present day, Berger noted, despite U.N. sanctions on North Korea which should, in theory, curtail them: It may even have thrived, with state media in both countries loudly publicizing the regular high-level meetings between Syria and North Korea.

Bermudez says that since the Arab Spring began, there have been a number of reports that small teams of North Korean soldiers were providing logistical support to the Syrian regime. However, he notes that some more recent seem to suggest North Korean soldiers are actively playing a role in fighting in Syria. "While I can't confirm these reports," Bermudez says, "it would not be out of character for North Korea to do so, as they historically have provided small 'regime support' forces to countries in crisis in Africa."

Berger agrees. "Military to military cooperation between the two countries, including on-the-ground presence of North Korean troops, would be in keeping with the history of their bilateral relationship," she says.

(Bermudez also notes that the reference to North Korean units being named "Chalma" could be a reference to the Kalma airfield in North Korea.)

Not everyone is so sure. Philip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland who studies groups allied to the Syrian regime, says that he has also recently seen a number of vague reports about North Koreans fighting for Assad in Syrian news sources that are sympathetic to the regime. However, he wasn't sure of their accuracy. "Often, they would confuse Afghan Shia Hazara fighters for 'Chinese' or 'Koreans,' Smyth says, referring to an Afghan minority known to fight alongside the Syrian regime.

North Korean authorities have denied any military involvement in the past, with state news agency KCNA writing in 2013 that "foreign media" were "floating misinformation."

But with North Korea increasingly cash-strapped, analysts have noted that it has increasingly sent citizens abroad to earn foreign money. These citizens often work in conditions that Marzuki Darusman, the special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, has referred to as "forced labor." For Pyongyang, perhaps the Syrian war is a payday.

This article was written by Adam Taylor from The Washington Post and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

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Day after day, North Korea boasts of new weapons programs developments and unleashes fiery threats to attack rivals South Korea and the United States.

On Friday, for example, the North's state media said it staged its largest-ever long-range artillery drills aimed at bringing the "most miserable doom to the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet group of traitors."

The North's threats are an apparent response to ongoing South Korea-U.S. military drills that it describes as a dress rehearsal for an invasion. If the past is any guide, most of Pyongyang's warlike threats will likely turn out to be empty propaganda and gradually subside when the allies' springtime training ends in late April.

But there is always a small chance that North Korea could launch some kind of surprise attack. Two 2010 assaults blamed on Pyongyang were totally unexpected: the torpedoing of a warship and shelling of a border island that together killed 50 South Koreans. Pyongyang denies responsibility for the torpedoing that occurred when the same South Korea-U.S. drills were under way, though it acknowledged bombarding the island.

Here is a look at North Korea's recent bellicose threats, claims and weapons launches.

Threats of nuclear strikes

At the start of the allies' drills on March 7, North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission, led by absolute leader Kim Jong Un, warned of a "pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice" on Washington and Seoul.

While such rhetoric is relatively common, it intensified as the North furiously reacted to tough U.N. sanctions imposed for its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

North Korea is known to have a handful of rudimentary atomic bombs. But analysts say it is highly unlikely the North would actually carry out its threat of nuclear attacks due to concerns of massive retaliation by the superior U.S. and South Korean militaries that would probably end Kim's rule.

Last week, state media said Kim ordered tests of a nuclear warhead explosion and ballistic missiles capable of warheads, but there are no signs tests have been carried out.

Weapons launches

In recent weeks, North Korea has fired a slew of short-range missiles and artillery shells into the sea in an apparent response to the South Korea-U.S. drills. Last Friday, it launched a medium-range ballistic missile into waters off its east coast for the first time since 2014.

North Korea routinely tests short-range missiles and artillery systems but it tends to do more launches in times of tension with the outside world.

Among the weapons tested this month was what North Korea called a new large-caliber artillery rocket system, which experts believe could reach Seoul, a metropolitan area of 10 million. South Korean experts believe the new launchers can fire 300-millimeter rockets up to 200 kilometers (125 miles).

Disclosing nuclear capability

North Korea has gone to great lengths to tout its alleged advancements in nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

The North's official media on March 9 showed a smiling Kim posing with nuclear scientists beside what appeared to be a model trigger device of a nuclear warhead. Kim declared warheads had been miniaturized for use on ballistic missiles, according to the report.

Days later, the North claimed to have mastered a re-entry technology that is designed to protect a warhead from extreme heat and other challenges when it returns to the atmosphere from space following a missile launch.

The miniaturization and re-entry technologies are among the last major hurdles that foreign experts say the North must tackle to accomplish its goal of manufacturing a nuclear-armed missile that can reach the continental U.S.

South Korean defense officials, however, say there is no proof that North Korea has a functioning intercontinental ballistic missile.

On Thursday, North Korea created a stir by claiming it had successfully conducted a high-powered, solid-fuel rocket engine test. Solid-fuel missiles are generally harder to detect before they are launched than liquid-fuel missiles. South Korea said it needs to analyze the North's claim.

Sea of fire

When North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of flames" in 1994, alarmed Seoul residents rushed to stock up on instant noodles and other supplies. But after repeated similar threats that were never carried out, most South Koreans now react with indifference.

In recent weeks, North Korea again fired verbal salvos, saying it will "liberate" South Korea, launch attacks with the new artillery rockets to "instantly destroy" Seoul's presidential palace and turn the city into a "sea of flames."

While South Korea's president ordered a heightened security posture, the largely unflustered public has been more preoccupied with political squabbling ahead of next month's parliamentary elections, the start of baseball season and the new hit soap opera, "Descendants of the Sun."

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North Korea released a new propaganda video Saturday titled "Last Chance", showing a submarine-launched nuclear missile laying waste to Washington and concluding with the US flag in flames.

The four-minute video romps through the history of US-Korean relations and ends with a digitally manipulated sequence showing a missile surging through clouds, swerving back to the earth and slamming into the road in front of Washington's Lincoln Memorial. 

The US Capitol building explodes in the impact and a message flashes up on the screen in Korean: "If US imperialists budge an inch toward us, we will immediately hit them with nuclear (weapons)."

The video was published on the North's propaganda website DPRK Today and shows images from the Korean War, the capture of US spy ship Pueblo in 1968 and the first crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme in the early 1990s.

Pyongyang has upped the rhetorical ante in recent weeks, with near daily threats of nuclear and conventional strikes against the South and the US mainland in response to large-scale South-US war games.

The threats have turned increasingly personal, and North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un on Friday watched a live-fire long-range artillery drill simulating a strike on the official residence of his South Korean counterpart.

Tensions between the two Koreas been on the rise since Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, and a satellite rocket launch a month later that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.

North Korea has been pushing to acquire submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) capability which would take its nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.

The North has conducted a number of what it says were successful tests of a SLBM.

But experts have questioned the veracity of those tests, suggesting Pyongyang had gone little further than a "pop-up" test from a submerged platform. 

SEE ALSO: Here's a look at North Korea's most aggressive threats, claims and weapons launches

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