I just don’t see how North Korea does not get put back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism List after this latest news that they used a weapon of mass destruction to kill someone within a busy airport:
A police officer checks his phone inside the forensic department at Kuala Lumpur Hospital in Malaysia Friday. Police announced the banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent was used in the murder of Kim Jong-nam last week at the airport in Kuala Lumpur. [AP/YONHAP]Malaysian police announced Friday that the poison used to kill Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was VX nerve agent, a type of chemical weapon.
“The chemical substance on the exhibits has been identified as VX nerve agent,” Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar said in a press briefing on Friday. The inspector general added that the chemical was detected from swabs of Kim’s eyes and face, citing a preliminary toxicology test by the Malaysian government’s chemistry department.
The odorless and colorless VX nerve agent is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) classifies VX as “the most potent of all nerve agents.”
The Malaysian authorities said they are investigating how the internationally banned chemical weapon made its way into Malaysia. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but something I am wondering is how did the VX kill Kim Jong-nam, but not the two women who had it on their hands when they attacked him? Have the North Koreans developed a new type of VX agent that only kills when it makes contact with the eyes perhaps?
Finally according to the article it is believed that North Korea has 5,000 tons of sarin and VX nerve agents. Seeing how effective this agent was with quickly killing Kim Jong-nam can you imagine what an aerial dispersal of this weapon would do if released in Seoul?
If it is absorbed through the pores, one might gain a temporary protection by covering one’s hands with a grease or a gell. When I worked a long time ago in a printshop, one of the older printers routinely used a kind of grease on his hands so that he could the more easily clean off ink at the end of his shift. He claimed it created a barrier that stopped the inks – some of which contained dangerous heavy metals – from being absorbed through the skin. Printers, in the old days at least, tended to have pretty high long-term disability rates as they entered their later years. If that’s the case, then the two women went into the washroom not just to wash off the agent, but as well the grease/gell. It would be interesting to examine the footage to assess whether the women deliberately avoided touching any other part of their skin with their hands until they had finished washing; which would be pretty much proof of guilty knowledge.
sfasdfsadf
7 years ago
If VX killed Kim then that is pretty strong additional evidence that North Korea intentionally killed Kim. There are only so many countries with VX and their stockpiles are well guarded.
ChickenHead
7 years ago
The old VX bombs/rockets used the binary system… two chemicals which combined in flight to make VX.
Two girls delivering two different chemicals and manufacturing the VX on his face might explain why they are still alive.
The whole assassination of Kim Jong-nam seems like amateur hour, but expect I more from North Korean operatives which leads me to believe what is happening is what they intended.
They did not want to kill him in China because of the political repercussions and thus Malaysia was their only real opportunity since he was frequently traveling there. I think they wanted to kill Kim Jong-nam with as many cameras capturing it as possible. Where is there more cameras than an airport? At the same time they don’t want North Korean agents on camera doing the killing and thus recruited third country nationals to do it.
The use of VX nerve agent puts a chill into any regime officials thinking of defecting that a slow death is what is coming to them just like Kim Jong-nam.
If scaring off potential regime officials from defecting and killing off a potential Chinese Pu Yi was the intent so far so good I would say.
I read that this is how they did it — and the 2nd girl may have gotten some peanut butter on her chocolate, as she was observed to be vomiting after delivering the lethal ingredient.
@Hot Stuff, that could be the case but I think the VX’s main intent was to terrorize other potential defectors to thinking that if they can get to Kim Jong-nam and give him a slow horrible death they can do the same thing to them.
If it is absorbed through the pores, one might gain a temporary protection by covering one’s hands with a grease or a gell. When I worked a long time ago in a printshop, one of the older printers routinely used a kind of grease on his hands so that he could the more easily clean off ink at the end of his shift. He claimed it created a barrier that stopped the inks – some of which contained dangerous heavy metals – from being absorbed through the skin. Printers, in the old days at least, tended to have pretty high long-term disability rates as they entered their later years. If that’s the case, then the two women went into the washroom not just to wash off the agent, but as well the grease/gell. It would be interesting to examine the footage to assess whether the women deliberately avoided touching any other part of their skin with their hands until they had finished washing; which would be pretty much proof of guilty knowledge.
If VX killed Kim then that is pretty strong additional evidence that North Korea intentionally killed Kim. There are only so many countries with VX and their stockpiles are well guarded.
The old VX bombs/rockets used the binary system… two chemicals which combined in flight to make VX.
Two girls delivering two different chemicals and manufacturing the VX on his face might explain why they are still alive.
Again, this seems like an improbable movie plot.
Just shoot him in traffic from a motorcycle.
The whole assassination of Kim Jong-nam seems like amateur hour, but expect I more from North Korean operatives which leads me to believe what is happening is what they intended.
They did not want to kill him in China because of the political repercussions and thus Malaysia was their only real opportunity since he was frequently traveling there. I think they wanted to kill Kim Jong-nam with as many cameras capturing it as possible. Where is there more cameras than an airport? At the same time they don’t want North Korean agents on camera doing the killing and thus recruited third country nationals to do it.
The use of VX nerve agent puts a chill into any regime officials thinking of defecting that a slow death is what is coming to them just like Kim Jong-nam.
If scaring off potential regime officials from defecting and killing off a potential Chinese Pu Yi was the intent so far so good I would say.
I read that this is how they did it — and the 2nd girl may have gotten some peanut butter on her chocolate, as she was observed to be vomiting after delivering the lethal ingredient.
Maybe there was some intent for nK to subtly demonstrate to the world that not only do they have nukes, they also have nerve agent weapons.
@Hot Stuff, that could be the case but I think the VX’s main intent was to terrorize other potential defectors to thinking that if they can get to Kim Jong-nam and give him a slow horrible death they can do the same thing to them.