While the focus on North Korea has been their improvement of missiles and a potential nuclear strike against the United States, many have missed an equally sinister weapon lingering in the rogue nation’s arsenal. And experts say that it’s time to take notice of it.
Experts say there’s another weapon in Pyongyang’s arsenal the globe should keep a very close and watchful eye on.
“Nuclear weapons are not the only threat,” Kelsey Davenport, director of non-proliferation policy for the Arms Control Association told the McClatchy Washington Bureau. “North Korea could respond to a U.S. attack using chemical weapons. That would be devastating.”
And according to Fox News, Kim Jong Un’s military has been collecting large stockpiles of nerve agents, such as sarin and VX, which is the most dangerous and potent of all nerve gas agents.
North Korea could always choose a chemical attack, rather than a nuclear one; one that could target U.S. military bases in the region and large cities like Seoul and Tokyo, according to a new report.
Pyongyang denies that they have chemical agents, yet back in May, it was reported that the UN was helping North Korea obtain a patent for a banned nerve gas agent.
The Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology reports that the country has four military bases equipped with chemical weapons and at least 11 facilities where they are produced and stored.
“Compared to the nuclear threat, which involves, a finite number of warheads and delivery systems vulnerable to air defenses and anti-missile systems, the chemical threat is not as easily negated,” military analyst Reid Kirby wrote in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
There was a slight de-escalation of tensions with North Korea when the dictator decided to back off his threat of attacking the island nation of Guam. However, the fact that the rogue nation has an arsenal of chemical weapons isn’t sitting well with those at the top.
The Lebanese army launched an offensive on Saturday against an Islamic State enclave on the northeastern border with Syria, as the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah announced an assault on the militants from the Syrian side of the frontier.
The Lebanese army operation got underway at 5 a.m. (0200 GMT), targeting Islamic State positions near the town of Ras Baalbek with rockets, artillery and helicopters, a Lebanese security source said. The area is the last part of the Lebanese-Syrian frontier under insurgent control.
A security source said the offensive was making advances with several hills taken in the push against the militants entrenched on fortified high ground, in outposts and in caves.
The operation by Hezbollah and the Syrian army targeted the area across the border in the western Qalamoun region of Syria.
Hezbollah-run al-Manar TV said that its fighters were ascending a series of strategic heights known as the Mosul Mountains that overlook several unofficial border crossings used by the militants.
A Hezbollah statement said the group was meeting its pledge to "remove the terrorist threat at the borders of the nation" and was fighting "side by side" with the Syrian army.
It made no mention of the Lebanese army operation.
The Lebanese army said it was not coordinating the assault with Hezbollah or the Syrian army.
Any joint operation between the Lebanese army on the one hand and Hezbollah and the Syrian army on the other would be politically sensitive in Lebanon and could jeopardize the sizeable U.S. military aid the country receives.
In a recent speech, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the Lebanese army would attack Islamic State from its side of the border, while Hezbollah and the Syrian army would simultaneously assault from the other side.
A commander in the military alliance fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad said that "naturally" there was coordination between the operations.
Last month, Hezbollah forced Nusra Front militants and Syrian rebels to leave nearby border strongholds in a joint operation with the Syrian army.
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