Days before last week's Kurdistan referendum, Iran took steps to isolate and punish the Iraqi Kurdistan region and the government in Erbil (KRG). This included closing Iranian airspace to northern Iraq's two international airports and sending Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard forces to conduct drills along the northwest border with Kurdistan, but in the early hours of Monday Iran dramatically escalated its military build-up along the border by deploying dozens of tanks supported by artillery - this according to a Kurdish government official and Iranian state television.
The Kurdish official confirmed the tank build-up, saying "The tanks can be seen from the Kurdish side.” And Iranian state TV on Saturday indicated that Iran and Iraq would cooperate in joint drills and the establishment of heightened border security, to the point that Iran would "receive Iraqi forces that are to be stationed at border posts”.
Iranian government officials had warned just prior to last week's referendum that, “The republic of Iran has opened its legitimate border gates on the premise of the consent of the federal government of the Iraqi state. If such an event [referendum] happens, these border gates from the perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran would lose its legitimacy." It appears Iran is now making good on its threats as it worries that an independent Kurdistan at its border would be a destabilizing force concerning Iran's own sizable Kurdish minority.
South Korea is raising concerns that North Korea could harm vital institutions with an electromagnetic pulse over their nation. But that isn’t all.
South Korea also fears that the EMP would be centered over their nuclear power stations, airlines, and government ministries taking the country down for good.
North Korea has been successful at hacking into South Korea’s systems in the past.
The fears also swirl around a potential attack on the banking institutions leaving the economy in the south crippled.
According to End Time Headlines, an EMP attack sparked by a nuclear blast or a pulse weapon would quickly bring the South’s financial institutions to their knees.
Now, the national banks are looking into establishing data centers overseas, while others are looking to build reinforced repositories designed to withstand the blast of a powerful EMP weapon.
An EMP is a burst of high-intensity radio waves emitted from nuclear explosions in the upper atmosphere that scrambles electronics, much like a sudden power surge can overload a power outlet.
And Kim Jong Un has recently shown off an H-bomb capable of delivering an EMP attack, so South Korea’s concerns are not unfounded.
Electronic equipment exposed to an electromagnetic pulse can experience damaging current and voltage surges, while data stored electronically can be corrupted.
“Current regulations prohibit the transfer of client information overseas, so we are discussing ways to revise those rules so we can set up data backup centers abroad,” a financial official told the Korea Herald newspaper.
After a series of nuclear tests and missile launches, Pyongyang has been subjected to increasingly stringent sanctions imposed by the international community, which they continue to ignore.
Kim’s regime continues to defy the rest of the world and insists that it will continue to develop and deploy weapons capable of reaching targets anywhere in the United States.
Kang Kyung-wha, the South Korean foreign minister, said intelligence agencies are anticipating some sort of action by Pyongyang on or around October 10, the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
Another date that is being closely monitored is October 18, when the Communist Party of China is scheduled to open its 19th National Congress
In a fascinating report that provides a glimpse into the shadowy North Korean black-market economy, the Washington Post has published a story about a 2016 incident in which Egyptian authorities intercepted a North Korean ship bearing a Cambodian flag after being alerted by US authorities. After searching the ship, Egyptian law enforcement discovered something unexpected: a trove of nearly 24,000 rocket launchers, and components for 6,000 more weapons, hidden below a large pile of loose iron ore.
But perhaps the biggest surprise for the Egyptian authorities emerged when they tried to determine for whom the weapons were intended, and discovered that they had been secretly purchased by the Egyptian military in violation of international sanctions against NK arms sales. Further compounding the irony, Egypt had recently joined the UN Security Council – the international body sponsoring said sanctions – before deciding to circumvent them and buy the weapons.
As has been widely reported in the US media, North Korea reaps profits from several illegal rackets, believed to include counterfeiting of US dollars to the sale and distribution of methamphetamine. Now, we can add to that list the clandestine sale of Soviet-area conventional weapons, of which the North retains a massive stockpile, though it also manufactures its own copies.
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