North Korea to SPY on US military drills

North Korea ‘launches first satellite’ to spy on ‘reckless’ American training exercises with South Korea

• The ‘Hermit Kingdom’ has long threatened to use nuclear weapons against its neighbor
• U.S. and South Korean officials have been holding joint wargames near the North Korean border 
• North Korea claimed the launch was to protect itself against ‘reckless aggression’ by the U.S.  

North Korean strongman Kim-Jong Un has claimed to have launched a military satellite as part of a plot to spy on the U.S. military.

Pyongyang said it had dispatched ‘a space launch vehicle’, which mistakenly triggered an evacuation order in South Korea’s capital Seoul. 

The country’s state news agency KNCA had earlier carried a chilling warning to Joe Biden and a thinly-veiled threat of retaliation amid anger over U.S. military exercises.

Kim Jong-Un, seen here at a missile launch exercise in March, has threatened to use nuclear weapons against his South Korean neighbors

North Korea tested a missile from an undisclosed location in March, angering South Korean officials

Ri Pyong Chol, a member of North Korea’s top brass, said the satellite ‘will be indispensable to tracking, monitoring, discriminating, controlling and coping with in advance in real time the dangerous military acts of the U.S. and its vassal forces openly revealing their reckless ambition for aggression.’

U.S. and South Korean military officials have been conducting live-fire wargame drills close to the impoverished dictatorship’s frontier. 

The last exercises took place on Thursday to mark 70 years of a military alliance treaty between both nations.  

North Korea officials said leader Kim has already signed off on the final preparations for the launch.

The mouthpiece media outlet gave no details to the specific launch date.

But the Communist regime told Japan that it has planned a launch between May 31 and June 11, prompting Tokyo to put its ballistic missile defenses on alert.

Japanese officials has said it would shoot down any projectile that threatens its territory, claiming the launch would break international law.

The North has long claimed it has tactical nuclear weapons, capable of hitting targets in South Korea.

Photos published in its state newspaper in March amount to the first time it has provided so-called evidence.

But until those arms are tested, there is no way of knowing if they are authentic.  

The satellite launch would be the North’s latest in a series of missile launches and weapons tests, including one of a new, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile last month.

Analysts say the satellite will improve North Korea’s surveillance capability, enabling it to strike targets more accurately in the event of war.

Spy satellites are among an array of high-tech weapons systems Mr Kim had publicly vowed to develop.

Various other weapons systems on his wish list include solid-propellant ICBMs, nuclear-powered submarines, hypersonic missiles and multi-warhead missiles.

The North’s satellite launch comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Since the start of 2022, North Korea has test-launched more than 100 missiles, some of them nuclear-capable weapons that place the US mainland, South Korea and Japan within striking distance.

North Korea argues its testing spree is meant to issue warning over expanded military drills between the US and South Korea, but observers say North Korea aims to modernise its weapons programme then win greater concessions from its rivals in future dealings.

In 2005, it admitted to having nuclear weapons but vowed to close the nuclear program and on October 9, 2006 announced it had successfully conducted its first nuclear test.

Former President Donald Trump spoke with advisors about using nuclear weapons in North Korea and trying to blame someone else, according to a recent book

A book about ex-president Donald Trump claimed that he once threatened using U.S. nuclear weapons on the country and blaming someone else.

The U.S. and North Korea were in a tense and dangerous face-off in 2017, when Trump spoke of unleashing ‘fire and fury’ on Kim’s regime, the book by New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt said.

According to the account, Kelly, a retired Marine general, sought to push back and explain that the plan wouldn’t work.

‘It’d be tough to not have the finger pointed at us,’ he told the president.

The reported clash came after North Korea’s repeated missile launches, and Trump’s repeated threats, had policy experts worried about a potential military clash.

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