NKorea clears its military to attack US with nukes

NKorea says military cleared to attack with nukes; US says seeking to defuse situation

Associated Press -

PAJU, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea warned Thursday that its military has been cleared to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons, while the U.S. said it will strengthen regional protection by deploying a missile defense system to Guam.

Despite the intense rhetoric, analysts do not expect a nuclear attack by North Korea, which knows the move could trigger a destructive, suicidal war. Experts believe Pyongyang does not yet have the ability to launch nuclear-tipped missiles, but its other nuclear capabilities aren't fully known.

The strident warning from Pyongyang is the latest in a series of escalating threats from North Korea, which has railed against joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises taking place in South Korea and has expressed anger over tightened sanctions for its February nuclear test.

For a second day Thursday, North Korean border authorities denied entry to South Koreans who manage jointly run factories in the North Korean city of Kaesong. A North Korean government-run committee threatened to pull out North Korean workers from Kaesong as well.

On Tuesday, Pyongyang announced it would restart a plutonium reactor it had shut down in 2007. A U.S. research institute said Wednesday that satellite imagery shows that construction needed for the restart has already begun.

North Korea's military statement said its troops had been authorized to counter U.S. "aggression" with "powerful practical military counteractions," including nuclear weapons.

"We formally inform the White House and Pentagon that the ever-escalating U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK and its reckless nuclear threat will be smashed by the strong will of all the united service personnel and people and cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means," an unnamed spokesman from the General Bureau of the Korean People's Army said in a statement carried by state media, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "The U.S. had better ponder over the prevailing grave situation."

The Pentagon announced that it will deploy a missile defense system to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam to strengthen regional protection against a possible attack.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Washington is doing all it can to defuse the situation, echoing comments a day earlier by Secretary of State John Kerry.

"Some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger and threat to the interests, certainly of our allies, starting with South Korea and Japan, and also the threats that the North Koreans have leveled directly at the United States regarding our base in Guam, threatened Hawaii, threatened the West Coast of the United States," Hagel said Wednesday.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said its military is ready to deal with any provocation by North Korea. "I can say we have no problem in crisis management," deputy ministry spokesman Wee Yong-sub told reporters.

This spring's annual U.S.-South Korea drills have incorporated fighter jets and nuclear-capable stealth bombers, though the allies insist they are routine exercises. Pyongyang calls them rehearsals for a northward invasion.

The foes fought on opposite sides of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953. The divided Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war six decades later, and Washington keeps 28,500 troops in South Korea to protect its ally.

North Korea's nuclear strike capabilities remain unclear.

Pyongyang is believed to be working toward building an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a long-range missile. Long-range rocket launches designed to send satellites into space in 2009 and 2012 were widely considered covert tests of missile technology, and North Korea has conducted three underground nuclear tests, most recently in February.

"I don't believe North Korea has the capacity to attack the United States with nuclear weapons mounted on missiles, and won't for many years. Its ability to target and strike South Korea is also very limited," nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, said this week.

"And even if Pyongyang had the technical means, why would the regime want to launch a nuclear attack when it fully knows that any use of nuclear weapons would result in a devastating military response and would spell the end of the regime?" he said in answers posted to CISAC's website.

In Seoul, a senior government official said Tuesday it wasn't clear how advanced North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities are. But he also noted fallout from any nuclear strike on Seoul or beyond would threaten Pyongyang as well, making a strike unlikely. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly to the media.

North Korea maintains that it needs to build nuclear weapons to defend itself against the United States. On Monday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un led a high-level meeting of party officials who declared building the economy and "nuclear armed forces" as the nation's two top priorities.

Hecker has estimated that North Korea has enough plutonium to make several crude nuclear bombs. Its announcement Tuesday that it would restart a plutonium reactor indicated that it intends to produce more nuclear weapons material.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies has analyzed recent commercial satellite imagery of the Nyongbyon nuclear facility, where the reactor was shut down in 2007 under the terms of a disarmament agreement. A cooling tower for the reactor was destroyed in 2008.

The analysis published Wednesday on the institute's website, 38 North, says that rebuilding the tower would take six months, but a March 27 photo shows building work may have started for an alternative cooling system that could take just weeks. Experts estimate it could take three months to a year to restart the plant.

Meanwhile, North Korea threatened to close the Kaesong industrial complex, which houses factories powered by South Korean money and know-how and North Korean labor. It is a symbol of inter-Korean cooperation that has endured years of declining relations.

Trucks carrying cargo and South Korean workers were turned back Wednesday, and again Thursday morning, at the border city of Paju.

North Korea was allowing South Korean managers at Kaesong to return home. About 220 South Koreans were to cross the heavily fortified border into the South throughout Thursday, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.

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SKorea: North Korea moved missile to east coast

In the latest sign of escalating tensions with North Korea, the Pentagon said it will send an advanced ballistic missile defense system to Guam in the coming weeks, as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called Pyongyang a real and clear threat. (April 3)
Play Video: US Missile Defense to Counter North Korea Threat

A North Korean soldier uses a pair of binoculars to watch the South Korean side at the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in South Korea Thursday, April 4, 2013. South Korea's defense minister said Thursday North Korea has moved a missile with "considerable range" to its east coast, but said it is not capable of hitting the United States. (AP Photo/Yonhap, Lee Jong-hoon) KOREA OUT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has moved a missile with "considerable range" to its east coast, South Korea's defense minister said Thursday, but he added that there are no signs thatPyongyang is preparing for a full-scale conflict.

The report came hours after North Korea's military warned that it has been authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. It was the North's latest war cry against America in recent weeks. The reference to smaller weapons could be a claim that Pyongyang has improved its nuclear technology. Or a bluff.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said he did not know the reasons behind the North's missile movement, and that it "could be for testing or drills."

He dismissed reports in Japanese media that the missile could be a KN-08, which is believed to be a long-range missile that if operable could hit the United States.

Kim told lawmakers at a parliamentary committee meeting that the missile has "considerable range" but not enough to hit the U.S. mainland.

The range he described could refer to a mobile North Korean missile known as the Musudan, believed to have a range of 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles). That would make Japan and South Korea potential targets — along with U.S. bases in both countries — but there are doubts about the missile's accuracy.

The Pentagon announced that it will deploy a missile defense system to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam to strengthen regional protection against a possible attack.

Experts say North Korea has not demonstrated that it has missiles capable of long range or accuracy. Some suspect that long-range missiles unveiled by Pyongyang at a parade last year were actually mockups.

"From what we know of its existing inventory, North Korea has short- and medium-range missiles that could complicate a situation on the Korean Peninsula (and perhaps reach Japan), but we have not seen any evidence that it has long-range missiles that could strike the continental U.S., Guam or Hawaii," James Hardy, Asia Pacific editor of IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, wrote in a recent analysis.

Kim Kwan-jin said that if North Korea were preparing for a full-scale conflict, there would be signs including the mobilization of a number of units, including supply and rear troops, but South Korean military officials have found no such preparations.

"(North Korea's recent threats) are rhetorical threats. I believe the odds of a full-scale provocation are small," he said. But he added that North Korea might mount a small-scale provocation such as its 2010 shelling of a South Korean island, an attack that killed four people.

Pyongyang has been railing against joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises taking place in South Korea and has expressed anger over tightened U.N. sanctions for its February nuclear test. Many of the threats come in the middle of the night in Asia — daytime for the U.S. audience.

Analysts say the threats are probably efforts to provoke softer policies from South Korea, to win diplomatic talks with Washington and to solidify the image of young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

At times, Pyongyang has gone beyond rhetoric.

On Tuesday, it announced it would restart a plutonium reactor it had shut down in 2007. A U.S. research institute said Wednesday that satellite imagery shows that construction needed for the restart has already begun.

For a second day Thursday, North Korean border authorities denied entry to South Koreans who manage jointly run factories in the North Korean city of Kaesong. South Koreans already at the plant were being allowed to return home.

South Korea has prepared a military contingency plan should North Korea hold South Korean workers hostage in Kaesong, Defense Minister Kim said. He wouldn't elaborate.

Outraged over comments in the South about possible hostage-taking and a military response from Seoul, a North Korean government-run committee threatened to pull North Korean workers out of Kaesong as well.

North Korea's military statement Thursday, from an unnamed spokesman from the General Bureau of the Korean People's Army, said its troops had been authorized to counter U.S. "aggression" with "powerful practical military counteractions," including nuclear weapons.

It said America's "hostile policy" and "nuclear threat" against North Korea "will be smashed by the strong will of all the united service personnel and people and cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means."

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Washington is doing all it can to defuse the situation.

"Some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger and threat" to the U.S. and its allies, Hagel said Wednesday.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said its military is ready to deal with any provocation by North Korea. "I can say we have no problem in crisis management," deputy ministry spokesman Wee Yong-sub told reporters.

The defense minister, however, was criticized by lawmakers over a North Korean defector who stole a South Korean fishing boat Wednesday night and fled back to North Korea across the western sea border.

Kim said South Korean radar had a "blind spot" in the area and South Korean troops were unaware the defector was fleeing until he almost reached the North Korean side. Lawmakers questioned his military's readiness to detect and counter enemy troops who might use similar blind spots.

This spring's annual U.S.-South Korea drills have incorporated fighter jets and nuclear-capable stealth bombers. The allies insist they are routine exercises. Pyongyang calls them rehearsals for a northward invasion and says it needs nuclear weapons to defend itself.

On Sunday, Kim Jong Un led a high-level meeting of party officials who declared building the economy and "nuclear armed forces" as the nation's priorities.

Pyongyang is believed to be working toward building an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a long-range missile. Long-range rocket launches designed to send satellites into space in 2009 and 2012 were widely considered covert tests of missile technology, and North Korea has conducted three underground nuclear tests.

"I don't believe North Korea has the capacity to attack the United States with nuclear weapons mounted on missiles, and won't for many years. Its ability to target and strike South Korea is also very limited," nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, said this week.

In comments posted to CISAC's website, Hecker said North Korea knows a nuclear attack would be met with "a devastating nuclear response."

Hecker has estimated that North Korea has enough plutonium to make several crude nuclear bombs. Its announcement Tuesday that it would restart a plutonium reactor indicated that it intends to produce more nuclear weapons material.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies has analyzed recent commercial satellite imagery of the Nyongbyon nuclear facility, where the reactor was shut down in 2007 under the terms of a disarmament agreement. A cooling tower for the reactor was destroyed in 2008.

The analysis published Wednesday on the institute's website, 38 North, says that rebuilding the tower would take six months, but a March 27 photo shows building work may have started for an alternative cooling system that could take just weeks. Experts estimate it could take three months to a year to restart the plant.

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Associated Press writers Matthew Pennington in Washington and Youkyung Lee in Seoul contributed to this report.

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Syria warns Jordan over aiding rebels

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Syria's regime sternly warned neighboringJordan on Thursday that it was "playing with fire" by allowing the U.S. and other countries to train and arm rebels on its territory.

Jordan, America's closest ally in the Arab world, has long been nervous that President Bashar Assad's hard-line regime could retaliate for supporting the rebels. The warning carried on state media may add to those jitters, though Jordanian government officials publicly downplayed it as "mere speculation by the Syrian media."

Syrian state television said leaks in U.S. media show Jordan "has a hand in training terrorists and then facilitating their entry into Syria." State radio accused Jordan of "playing with fire."

A front-page editorial in the government daily al-Thawra accused Amman of adopting a policy of "ambiguity" by training the rebels while at the same time publicly insisting on a "political solution" to the Syrian crisis.

"Jordan's attempt to put out the flame from the leaked information will not help as it continues with its mysterious policy, which brings it closer to the volcanic crater," the paper said.

Two Jordanian officials downplayed the diplomatic tiff with Syria. One said Jordan will not discuss the state of relations through the media.

"Such discussions are usually carried out through the appropriate diplomatic channels,' he said. Both officials insisted on anonymity out of concern that their comments may further irritate relations, which have been historically bumpy.

Jordan has long been concerned that the Assad regime could use chemical weapons against it, or that agents linked to the regime or its allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah could attack the kingdom.

The Syrian warnings appeared to reflect the regime's concerns about statements by U.S. and other Western and Arab officials saying Jordan has been facilitating arms shipments and hosting training camps for Syrian rebels since last October.

The training and the influx of foreign-funded weapons have coincided with rebel gains in southernSyria near the strategic border area with Jordan.

Those gains could be leading up to control of the region along the Jordanian border. That would be a major victory that could offer rebels a staging ground to try to attack the capital Damascus, the seat of Assad's power.

Rebels already control large swathes of territory in northern Syria along the Turkish border.

Activists reported more advances in the south on Thursday.

The rebels receiving training in Jordan are mainly secular Sunni Muslim tribesmen from central and southern Syria who once served in the army and police.

The force is expected to fill a security vacuum — mainly to protect the border with Jordan, assist displaced Syrians and possibly set up a safe haven for refugees — if Assad is toppled.

The Syrians training in Jordan are also envisioned as a counterbalance to the Islamic militant groups that have proven to be among the most effective of the myriad rebel factions fighting Assad's forces on the ground.

Chief among those rebel extremist groups is Jabhat al-Nusra or the Nusra Front, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist group and says is associated with al-Qaida.

The prominence of such extremist groups has fueled fears in Jordan that the chaos in Syria could lead to a failed state where Islamic militants have a free hand.

Israel and the United States also are concerned about militants potentially operating in the area near the Israeli frontier with Syria in the Golan Heights — also in the south — should Assad's regime collapse.

Though Jordan is supporting one segment of the disparate patchwork of rebel groups, it is nevertheless concerned about the recent rebel advances in the south along its border.

One fear is that the fall of the area into rebel hands could unleash lawlessness on the border and provide a haven for Islamic extremist groups such as Nusra Front on its doorstep.

The Islamist rebel groups, particularly Nusra, are complicating the battlefield by thwarting much-needed international aid from countries such as the U.S. that do not want to bolster extremist, jihadi groups.

In the latest fighting in the south, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighters seized most parts of Karak neighborhood in the province of Daraa after several days of fighting.

Daraa province borders Jordan and its provincial capital of the same name was the birthplace of the uprising against Assad two years ago.

There were also heavy clashes reported in the town of Sheik Maskeen, which is on the route from the Jordanian capital Amman to Damascus. Daraa is 115 kilometers (71 miles) south of Damascus.

The Observatory, an anti-regime activist group, also reported clashes at a checkpoint outside a camp for displaced Syrians on the outskirts of the city of Daraa. It said rockets fell inside the camp, but did not say who fired them, or how many people died.

On Wednesday, opposition fighters captured a military base outside the city of Daraa. That victory followed the rebel takeover of Dael, one of the province's bigger towns, and another air defense base in the area late last month.

Their aim is to secure a corridor from the Jordanian border to Damascus in preparation for an eventual assault on the capital. And they have made major progress along the way. Activists say several towns and villages along the Daraa-Damascus route are now in rebel hands.

It is widely believed that the rebels are close to seizing control of the two border posts with Jordan — a significant gain that would bolster arms shipments to the rebels.

In comments distributed Thursday, Assad criticized the recent Arab League decision to give Syria's seat to the opposition, calling it "meaningless theatre."

"This League needs legitimacy itself. It cannot grant legitimacy to others nor withdraw it," he said in an interview with Turkey's TV channel Ulusal Kanal. Excerpts of which were published Wednesday and Thursday and the full interview will be aired Friday.

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Afghan relations with Pakistan at new low

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan accused Pakistan on Thursday of placing unacceptable conditions on efforts to bring peace to the country after nearly 12 years of war, the latest in a series of barbed exchanges that has sunk relations between the two neighbors to a new low.

A breakdown in ties threatens to hinder — or even paralyze — attempts to lure the Taliban to the negotiating table. That's a key goal of the United States and its allies as they work for a peaceful solution in Afghanistan ahead of the final pullout of foreign combat forces in 20 months.

Afghanistan and its international backers consider Pakistan a critical player in bringing the Taliban and other militant groups into peace talks. Pakistan holds dozens of Taliban prisoners and has been accused of backing the insurgents in an effort to be able to exert influence in Afghanistan after foreign troops leave.

A senior Pakistan official said, however, that Islamabad remained committed to reconciliation.

That's why Pakistan recently released 26 Afghan Taliban prisoners from its jails, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. Pakistan remains in contact with members of the Taliban who have been empowered to talk about reconciliation, he said.

A failure to bring peace could endanger the stability of Afghanistan and much of the region, including Pakistan, which is fighting its own domestic Taliban insurgency.

"We have told the Pakistanis that they should support peace in Afghanistan not only for the sake of the Afghan people, but for their own sake," Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai told The Associated Press in an interview on Thursday.

He said Afghanistan wants a close, broad, strategic relationship with Pakistan, "but one between two equal independent sovereign states, nothing less."

Pakistan, Mosazai said, is constantly shifting its position. Islamabad should be "supporting the Afghan peace process in a more meaningful way and having an independent bilateral relationship that is not based on a delusional desire to control Afghanistan."

So far, Afghanistan has been unsuccessful in getting militants to negotiate peace and needs Pakistan's help. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has urged the Taliban to work out a political resolution to the war and has backed a plan for the Taliban to open an office in the Gulf state of Qatar.

Publicly, the Taliban have long refused to speak directly with Karzai or his government, which they view as a puppet of foreign powers. Afghanistan thinks Pakistan has the influence to get them to talk so it's not helpful when the two capitals are feuding.

Relations between the two countries have been hot and cold in recent years.

Afghanistan often blames Pakistan for supporting insurgents who are fighting both NATO troops and government forces. Afghan officials also claim Pakistan has had a role in major attacks and suicide bombings. They said a suicide bombing that killed a former Afghan president and leader of the government-appointed peace council in September 2011 was planned in Quetta, Pakistan.

"It is not a tempest in a teapot," said Michael O'Hanlon, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. "An increasing number of Afghans have figured out how much of a hand Islamabad has had in all the violence over the years.

"If there is a silver lining, it's that Islamabad needs to know that the world has figured them out and that they can't continue their double game indefinitely and get away with it. Some Pakistanis know that already. Many still need to understand it."

Relations between Islamabad and Kabul had been improving in recent months.

Karzai had lauded Pakistan's decision to work for peace and help Afghanistan reach out to the Taliban, whose leaders are thought to be based in Pakistan.

In July, when British Prime Minister David Cameron visited Kabul and met with Karzai and the Pakistani prime minister, they pledged to work together to eliminate terrorism and agreed that peace in Afghanistan would help improve security in Pakistan.

In October, Salahuddin Rabbani, the current head of the peace council and the son of the ex-Afghan president who was slain, visited Islamabad and presented Pakistan with a plan to bring peace to his country by 2015. That plan included the active participation of Pakistan.

A month later, Pakistan's foreign minister gave the Afghans a draft agreement for a strategic partnership and Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani made a visit to Kabul. That visit further bolstered Afghan hopes that Islamabad was committed to peace and good relations.

NATO, Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a deal for better military coordination on the border, and equally important, Afghan officials said Kayani not only indicated support for the Afghan peace plan, but said that it should be accelerated from 2015 to 2013.

At a February meeting in London, the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan further cemented their relationship. At the meeting, it was announced that Afghanistan and Pakistan had committed themselves to trying to achieve peace within six months.

But Afghan officials said the meeting was not as rosy at it seemed.

They said Islamabad demanded three preconditions: That Afghanistan limit its relations with India — Pakistan's archenemy; reach a domestic consensus on peace; and immediately sign a strategic partnership with Pakistan.

Instead of the preconditions, the Afghans said they were expecting Pakistan to take its own steps toward fostering peace talks, including the release of the former No. 2 Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Afghan officials hoped that Baradar and other imprisoned members of the Taliban can help bring the Taliban to the peace talks. In January, Pakistan's foreign secretary had said Islamabad would eventually release all Taliban prisoners.

"Pakistan is continuing with delaying tactics in their support of the peace process by demanding a supposed intra-Afghan consensus on the peace process at a time that a national consensus to end the violence is the strongest it has ever been for the past decade," Mosazai told the AP.

Western officials have said that the Afghan government was too optimistic about what Pakistan was ready to give, especially on the release of Baradar, and that they should show patience.

Pakistan has denied issuing preconditions, but Afghan officials say recent comments show otherwise — including some made by unnamed Pakistani foreign ministry officials that Karzai was an impediment to peace.

"We believe that relations between the two countries are deteriorating," Karzai spokesman Aimal Faizi said recently. "Enough is enough."

In Islamabad, the senior Pakistani official stressed that Pakistan was supporting reconciliation. As a way to kick start the peace process, the official said Pakistan has suggested a meeting attended by the Taliban and representatives from Afghanistan's multiple ethnic groups. He insisted that the meeting was not aimed at excluding Karzai from the process, but rather to make sure that the Afghan president didn't cut out his own political opposition.

Further complicating efforts to gain traction on a peace process is internal fighting among members of the Taliban, the official said. He said there was an ongoing debate between two factions of the Taliban: Those who reject talks when they are close to seeing international forces leave and a weaker Afghan force take charge and others who see reconciliation as a way to regain political power in Afghanistan.

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AP Intelligence writer Kimberly Dozier contributed from Islamabad.