nuclear-news

North Korea and underwater nukes

Inside the Ring By Bill Gertz The Washington Times 19 dec 10, Underwater nukes U.S. intelligence agencies are working to track down an alarming report from inside North Korea revealing that the communist regime is secretly developing underwater nuclear torpedoes and mines. According to a newsletter run by dissident North Koreans, the report states that North Korea’s government has a special group of researchers at the National Defense Technology Institute that is “developing underwater weapons using nuclear warheads.” The report was published Dec. 3 by the Korean-language newsletter NK Chisigan Yondae, or NK Intellectual Solidarity.

The U.S. Navy once had nuclear torpedoes and mines, as did the Soviet navy, and China’s military also has discussed the use of nuclear torpedoes in its military writings as recently as 2006.

The nuclear torpedo and mine program aimed at compensating for Pyongyang’s high-technology gap with U.S. and South Korean firepower by using its nuclear arsenal, and North Korean sources told the newsletter that researchers in the country are concerned about the arms program.

The report quotes a government official in North Pyongan province, on the northeast border with China: “In March 2009, Institute 108 under Guidance Bureau 131 (General Bureau of Atomic Energy) launched a nuclear torpedo and mine research.”

The official noted that “nuclear mines are technologically at a stage of completion, and the plan [is] to finish [developing] nuclear torpedoes by 2012.”…

Inside the Ring – Washington Times

December 11, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | North Korea, weapons and war