You can’t put nothing passed the Kim regime, but I doubt they would sell the large amount of VX nerve gas needed to launch a massive terrorist strike. If they sold the nerve agent it was linked back to them it would lead to a retaliatory strike or worse regime removal. It doesn’t seem like it would be worth the risk to them even if they are cash strapped:
The use of the nerve agent VX in the killing of Kim Jong-nam, the half brother of North Korea’s leader, raises the dangerous specter of a cash-strapped Pyongyang ultimately selling such a chemical weapon to terrorist groups like al-Qaida, a former senior diplomat warned Wednesday.
The use of VX added to mounting evidence that North Korea was behind Kim’s killing in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13. VX is a chemical agent listed as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations and its use is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which the North is not a signatory.
Eight North Koreans have been named as suspects, but the North has denied its involvement.
“The specter of chemical weapons proliferation, of VX in the hands of terrorists, now looms ever larger,” James Rubin, a former assistant secretary of state, said in an article in the Politico.
“The apparent shipment from North Korea to Malaysia of VX — a lethal substance banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention — is a brazen violation of international law despite the fact that North Korea is not a signatory to the convention,” he said. [Yonhap]
Special personnel wearing protective clothes and masks operate equipment at the departure lobby of Kuala Lumpur International Airport Terminal 2 in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 26, 2017, looking for any trace of poison. The detection operation was made after VX nerve agent, a lethal chemical weapon, was found on the body of Kim Jong-nam, the murdered half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. (Yonhap)
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?
