North Korean arms shipmemnt seized in Thailand

North Korea sending arms to Hamas? Hezbollah? To Pakistan? 

Thirty-five tons of North Korean weapons, including missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and explosives, have been seized from a Russian transporter plane that stopped to refuel in Bangkok during an apparent arms run to Asia.

The huge cache, uncovered by Thai authorities on a tip-off from the US, was allegedly being shipped illegally to ”a south Asian country” to help North Korea beat United Nations sanctions on arms trading.

There was a suggestion yesterday from the Thai Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, that the arms may have been bound for terrorist organisations.

”We are not yet clear why they were transporting these weapons … security and intelligence services are continuing to investigate … It is not yet clear if this is terrorist activity,” he said.

Ed Morrissey takes a look at where these weapons were headed

Impoverished North Korea earns more than $US1 billion ($1.09 billion) a year selling weapons, but the UN banned it from moving any arms in or out of the country after it conducted a nuclear test in May.

Who else buys North Korean munitions, especially missiles and explosives?  UN nations are supposed to abide by the sanctions regime placed on Pyongyang after its nuclear tests.  The only entities that need resupply on missiles and explosives and which can’t purchase such materiel openly are terrorist organizations.

Thailand has arrested the men on the airplane, who insisted that the cargo was benign.  None of the five are from North Korea.  Instead, the crew was comprised of four Kazakhs and a Belarussian, who flew the plane empty from Russia to Pyongyang, which may create even more international intrigue on this story.  They could wind up with life imprisonment for illegal munitions dealing, but it’s a lot more likely that the Thais and the US will use that threat to gain more intel on Kim Jong-il’s illegal arms dealing.

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