U.S. Monitoring Possible North Korean Military Base In Syria

[edpc]

The United States is monitoring information indicating that North Korea may be running a large underground military base in Syria that could be used for advanced weaponry and nuclear-related work, according to regional reports and U.S. officials tracking the situation.

Regional reports have begun to surface indicating North Korea has neared completion of the construction of an underground military base located near Qardaha in Syria, the hometown of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"According to … satellite images and a military source the underground facility has been under construction for seven years, started by the beginning if the Syrian revolution in March 2011," Zaman Al Wasl, a Syrian news outlet, reported earlier this month. "The high level of secrecy and tight guard in the North Korean base raise speculations whether it's a nuclear facility or overseas depot for North Korean weapons."

U.S. officials told the Washington Free Beacon they are monitoring these reports and efforts by North Korea to help Assad rebuild Syria's chemical weapons factories.

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-monitoring-possible-north-korean-military-base-syria/

[edpc]

Plausible.  They tried building a Syrian nuclear facility in 2007, until Israel took it out. It would make sense they want to talk about ‘denuclearization’ of the Korean peninsula if they have facilities elsewhere.





After Israel destroyed the Syrian facility in 2007, the remnants were quickly bulldozed.  No doubt they wanted any new place harder to detect and destroy.

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Are North Koreans Fighting In Syria? It’s Not As Far-Fetched As It Sounds.

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.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/25/are-north-koreans-fighting-in-syria-its-not-as-far-fetched-as-it-sounds/?sw_bypass=true&utm_term=.bee5eec117c5


If North Korea Is Helping Syria Make Chemical Weapons, It's Part Of A Long History Of Outlaw Ties

An incendiary report that North Korea has been providing Syria with material that could be used to make chemical weapons marks the merging of a pair of dangerous storylines involving two of the world's prime powder kegs.

But North Korea and Syria, each led by a dictator who has repeatedly defied the West when it comes to banned weaponry, have a decades-long history of military ties, unbroken and perhaps even enhanced by the pariah status attained by each government over the years.

The findings of United Nations experts cited in a New York Times report are consistent with well-documented past practices of both governments in evading international controls via intricate smuggling networks, analysts said.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-north-korea-syria-20180227-story.html


North Korea, Iran And Syria: The Chemical Weapons Axis Of Evil?

At 4:30 in the morning on July 25, 2007, a fiery explosion tore through a heavily guarded building a dozen miles southeast of Aleppo, Syria. The building was part of a complex known as al-Safir, one of five constructed by the Syrian government to produce and store chemical weapons. Al-Safir particular specialized in Sarin and VX, extremely lethal nerve agents that among other terrible effects disrupt the muscle responses necessary for breathing.

The shock of the blast was so great it blew off the facility’s heavy metal doors. Choking clouds of gas flooded through the surrounding complex, which measured five miles by two miles.

Some accounts claim that as many as two hundred were wounded or killed in the accident. Local medical staff could not cope with the disaster and it became necessary to summon outside help to the classified facility.

Publicly, the Syrian government claimed that the facility had been a conventional arms depot, and that temperatures exceeding fifty degrees Celsius had caused munitions to cook off in a chain reaction. But that didn’t square with the timing of the explosion during a cool desert night.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/2007-syria-iran-north-korea-030000257.html