Report: North Korea is selling rockets to Hamas
“Western security sources” have told The Telegraph that Hamas has struck a deal with North Korea to purchase communications equipment, and to replenish its stock of rockets to fire at civilian targets in Israel.
Security officials say the deal between Hamas and North Korea is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and is being handled by a Lebanese-based trading company with close ties to the militant Palestinian organisation based in east Beirut.
Hamas officials are believed to have already made an initial cash down payment to secure the deal, and are now hoping that North Korea will soon begin shipping extra supplies of weapons to Gaza.
If “Western security sources” know this much, then they must also know the name of the bank that processed the transaction. If the bank did so knowingly, and if the United States has personal and subject matter jurisdiction over its officers, they may have violated Executive Order 13551. Even if the bank simply overlooked its “know-your-customer” due diligence, it could get Alderaaned.
“Hamas is looking for ways to replenish its stocks of missiles because of the large numbers it has fired at Israel in recent weeks,” explained a security official. “North Korea is an obvious place to seek supplies because Pyongyang already has close ties with a number of militant Islamist groups in the Middle East.”
Using intermediaries based in Lebanon, Hamas officials are said to be intensifying their efforts to sign a new agreement with Pyongyang to provide hundreds of missiles together with communications equipment that will improve the ability of Hamas fighters to coordinate operations against Israeli forces.
North Korea has long been suspected of helping Hezbollah dig a network of tunnels throughout its territory in southern Lebanon (Page 22). Apparently, it has done the same for Hamas.
Israeli military commanders supervising operations against Gaza believe North Korean experts have given Hamas advice on building the extensive network of tunnels in Gaza that has enabled fighters to move weapons without detection by Israeli drones, which maintain a constant monitoring operation over Gaza.
The North Koreans have one of the world’s most sophisticated network of tunnels running beneath the demilitarised zone with South Korea, and Israeli commanders believe Hamas has used this expertise to improve their own tunnel network.
The Telegraph report also bolsters suspicions, raised in this recent U.N. Panel of Experts report, that Hamas’s 333-millimeter rockets might have North Korean fuzes.
More on North Korea’s support for terrorism at this post, where I noted earlier this week that federal District Court Judge Royce Lamberth had found North Korea liable for supporting Hezbollah rocket attacks against Israel.
All in all, it’s been a rough week for the State Department’s official position that North Korea “not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987.”
President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008, to reward it for promising to completely, verifiably, and irreversibly dismantle its nuclear weapons programs.
During the Obama Administration, North Korea has carried out two nuclear tests, multiple missile tests, two attacks on South Korea, and a spate of attempted and effected assassinations against critics of its regime, yet President Obama has seen no cause to reverse President Bush’s decision.
Discuss among yourselves.
Update: Benjamin Young has more on North Korea’s arms sales to Palestinian terrorists, here.