Coming to America

You know what's happening in Boston, who doesn't.  It is the first successful attempt by Muslim extremists planting an Improvised Explosive Device on U.S. soil.

The I.E.D. threat first surfaced in Iraq after the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a weapon of choice for the insurgency.  Extremists from Pakistan and Afghanistan even trained with the Iraqi Sunni insurgency and took what they learned to other hotspots - I.E.D's soon showed up in Afghanistan and Pakistan as popular weapons to kill U.S. troops and those supporting U.S. goals in the region.

We should not be surprised that the strategy is moving in our direction.  There have been several attempts, the most recent in New York's Times Square to set off an I.E.D. - but the Boston Marathon bombing was the first successful such attack on U.S. soil.

Don't be surprised that it encourages other Islamic extremists in the U.S. to be more bold when it comes to setting I.E.D.'s anywhere in the country. 

Our game of "Whack a Mole" against Americanized Islamic extremists just got a lot more serious.

Thoughts on Boston Marathon Bombing

We're still in the early phases of the investigation, and the FBI/Terrorism Team isn't saying much (Maybe because they don't have a suspect yet, and don't want to tip him off). 

But they have said a little.  The bombs were made from small pressure cookers, and both were carried to their detonation locations inside a heavy dark colored nylon bag or backpack. 

Bombs made from pressure cookers are familiar to anyone working counter-terrorism.  The New York Times bomber used one as one of three devices in the back of his SUV.  There have also been pressure cooker devices successfully used in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

Before being chased off by drone raids, the la-Qaeda arm in Yemen published a magazine called "Inspire" - and in one of its editions it described how to make a pressure cooker bomb.  It also said that Jihadists should target American Sporting events.

Of course, these same instructions were reprinted in magazines read by white supremacists and other extremists groups in the U.S.  There is no indication, yet, that this is a Islamic terrorist plot.

However, the evidence is clearly starting to lean that way.  A lack of any claims of responsibility also lean Islamic terrorism at this time.  After all, there has been no arrest.  A foreign sponsored group may be trying right now to get their man out of the U.S.

My money is on a domestic Islamic extremists who has no record, who may or may not have received training overseas, and is now looking for a way out of the country.

But if you've read this blog, you know I've been wrong before.  Only time will tell.

North Korea Clears Nuke Strike on U.S.

Those crazy North Koreans!  Latest from AP:

By Jung Ha-Won (AFP)

SEOUL (AP) — North Korea dramatically escalated its warlike rhetoric on Thursday, warning that it had authorised plans for nuclear strikes on targets in the United States.

"The moment of explosion is approaching fast," the North Korean military said, warning that war could break out "today or tomorrow".

Pyongyang's latest pronouncement came as Washington scrambled to reinforce its Pacific missile defences, preparing to send ground-based interceptors to Guam and dispatching two Aegis class destroyers to the region.

Tension was also high on the North's heavily fortified border with South Korea, after Kim Jong-Un's isolated regime barred South Koreans from entering a Seoul-funded joint industrial park on its side of the frontier.

In a statement published by the state KCNA news agency, the Korean People's Army general staff warned Washington that US threats would be "smashed by... cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means".

"The merciless operation of our revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified," the statement said.

Last month, North Korea threatened a "pre-emptive" nuclear strike against the United States, and last week its supreme army command ordered strategic rocket units to combat status.

But, while Pyongyang has successfully carried out test nuclear detonations, most experts think it is not yet capable of mounting a device on a ballistic missile capable of striking US bases or territory.

Mounting tension in the region could however trigger incidents on the tense and heavily militarised border between North and South Korea.

The White House was swift to react to Pyongyang's latest "unhelpful and unconstructive threats".
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said: "It is yet another offering in a long line of provocative statements that only serve to further isolate North Korea from the rest of the international community and undermine its goal of economic development.

"North Korea should stop its provocative threats and instead concentrate on abiding by its international obligations."
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel earlier said Pyongyang represented a "real and clear danger" to the United States and to its allies South Korea and Japan.

"They have nuclear capacity now, they have missile delivery capacity now," Hagel said after a strategy speech at the National Defense University. "We take those threats seriously, we have to take those threats seriously.

"We are doing everything we can, working with the Chinese and others, to defuse that situation on the peninsula."

The Pentagon said it would send ground-based THAAD missile-interceptor batteries to protect military bases on the island of Guam, a US territory some 3,380 kilometres (2,100 miles) southeast of North Korea and home to 6,000 American military personnel, submarines and bombers.

They would complement two Aegis anti-missile destroyers already dispatched to the region.

The THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) is a truck-mounted system that can pinpoint an enemy missile, track the projectile and launch an interceptor to bring it down.

The new defensive measures came as Pyongyang stopped South Korean staff members from entering the Kaesong complex, a shared industrial zone funded by Seoul but 10 kilometres inside the North.

Pyongyang said the 861 South Koreans already in the zone could leave.

The move cut the last practical cooperation between the rival powers and was seen as a dramatic escalation in the crisis.

South Korea's defence ministry said it had contingency plans that included "military action" if the safety of its citizens in Kaesong was threatened.

China, the North's sole major ally, appealed for "calm" from all sides, and Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov said he was worried the situation could spiral out of control.

Describing the Kaesong ban as "very regrettable", South Korea's Unification Ministry urged the North to normalise access immediately.

Around 53,000 North Koreans work at 120 South Korean plants at the complex, which was still operating normally Wednesday.

Tensions have soared on the Korean peninsula since December, when the North test launched a long-range rocket. In February, it upped the ante once again by conducting its third nuclear test.

Washington has deployed nuclear-capable US B-52s, B-2 stealth bombers and two US destroyers to South Korean air and sea space.

This week, the North warned it would reopen its mothballed Yongbyon reactor -- its source of weapons-grade plutonium. It was closed in July 2007 under a six-nation aid-for-disarmament accord.

The US-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University said Wednesday that a satellite photograph seen on March 27 appeared to show construction work along a road and near the back of the reactor was already under way.

Experts said it would take at least six months to get the reactor back up and running, after which it will be able to produce one bomb's worth of weapons-grade plutonium per year.

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Korean Showdown Looms

(CNN) -- The United States will not accept North Korea as a "nuclear state," Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Tuesday, just hours after Pyongyang announced plans to restart a nuclear reactor it shut down five years ago.

North Korea's decision comes as tensions on the Korean peninsula escalate over Kim Jong Un's threats to wage war against the United States and South Korea.

"The bottom line is simply that what Kim Jong Un is choosing to do is provocative. It is dangerous, reckless. 

The United States will not accept the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) as a nuclear state," Kerry said during a joint briefing in Washington with South Korea Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se.

"And I reiterate again the United States will do what is necessary to defend ourselves and defend our allies, Korea and Japan. We are fully prepared and capable of doing so, and I think the DPRK understands that."

North Korea's declaration that it would reopen the reactor demonstrates Kim's commitment to the country's nuclear weapons program that the international community has tried without success to persuade it to abandon.

The North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the reclusive state's atomic energy department intends to "readjust and restart all the nuclear facilities" at its main nuclear complex, in Yongbyon.

Those facilities include a uranium enrichment facility and a reactor that was "mothballed and disabled" under an agreement reached in October 2007 during talks among North Korea, the United States and four other nations, KCNA said.

The announcement was followed by a plea for calm from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is South Korean.

"The current crisis has already gone too far," he said in a statement from Andorra. "Nuclear threats are not a game. Aggressive rhetoric and military posturing only result in counter-actions, and fuel fear and instability.

"Things must begin to calm down, as this situation, made worse by the lack of communication, could lead down a path that nobody should want to follow."

Ban said dialogue and negotiations are "the only way to resolve the current crisis."

The tensions on the Korean Peninsula have led Pyongyang to sever a key military hotline with Seoul and declare void the 1953 armistice that stopped the Korean War.

The United States has made a show of its military strength amid annual training exercises with South Korea, flying B-2 stealth bombers capable of carrying conventional or nuclear weapons, Cold War-era B-52s and F-22 Raptor stealth fighters over South Korea.

On Monday, Seoul warned that any provocative moves from North Korea would trigger a strong response "without any political considerations."

U.S. moves warship, sea-based radar to watch North Korea

Murky motivation

The motivation behind the North's announcement Tuesday on the nuclear facilities was unclear, Thakur said, suggesting that it was unlikely to make a big difference militarily for the country, which is already believed to have four to 10 nuclear weapons.

The North Koreans may be hoping to use the move as a bargaining chip in any future talks, he said, or it could be an attempt by the country's young leader to shore up support domestically.

"It's just a very murky situation," Ramesh Thakur, director of the Center for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament at Australian National University in Canberra.

"The danger is that we can misread one another and end up with a conflict that no one wants."

China, a key North Korean ally, expressed regret over Pyongyang's announcement about the reactor.

"China has consistently advocated denuclearization on the peninsula and maintaining peace and stability in the region," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei said Tuesday at a regular news briefing.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the move would need to be dealt with in a serious manner, noting that it breached the North's previous commitments.

On Tuesday, Kerry refused to speculate about North Korea's intentions or what its strategy may be with regard to its plans to reopen its reactor.

"We've heard an extraordinary amount of unacceptable rhetoric from the North Korean government in the last days. So let me be perfectly clear here today: the United States will defend and protect ourselves, and our treaty ally, the Republic of Korea," he said.

Kerry reiterated the U.S. policy with regard to North Korea, saying the United States believes there is "a very simple way" for Pyongyang to end the sanctions by ending its nuclear ambitions.

South Korea warns North of 'strong response' to any attack

A torrent of threats

The North's latest declaration comes after a stream of verbal attacks against South Korea and the United States in recent weeks, including the threat of a nuclear strike.

Pyongyang's angry words appear to have been fueled by recent joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea in the region, as well as tougher U.N. sanctions in response to North Korea's latest nuclear test in February.

Much of the bellicose rhetoric, analysts say, isn't matched by the country's military capabilities.

Nuclear weapons: Who has what?

Still, the U.S. Navy was moving a warship and a sea-based radar platform closer to the North Korean coast in order to monitor that country's military moves, including possible new missile launches, a Defense Department official said Monday.

The North's announcement Tuesday follows a new strategic line "on simultaneously pushing forward economic construction and the building of the nuclear armed force." It was announced Sunday during a meeting of a key committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea headed by Kim Jong Un.

The work of adapting and restarting the nuclear facilities "will be put into practice without delay," KCNA said.

The measures would help solve "the acute shortage of electricity," as well as improving the "quality and quantity" of the country's nuclear arsenal, it said.

Threats of annihilation normal for South Koreans

Yongbyon's backstory

In June 2008, the usually secretive North Korean government made a public show of destroying the cooling tower of the Yongbyon reactor to demonstrate its compliance with a deal to disable its nuclear facilities.

But two months later, as its then-leader, Kim Jong Il, balked at U.S. demands for close inspections of its nuclear facilities, the North started to express second thoughts.

It said it was suspending the disabling of its nuclear facilities and considering steps to restore the facilities at 

Yongbyon "to their original state."

In November 2009, it announced it was reprocessing nuclear fuel rods as part of measures to resume activities at Yongbyon. It noted success in turning the plutonium it had extracted into weapons-grade material.