North Korea Train Wreck: An Assassination Attempt?

Excerpt From Newsletter May 1, 2004

V. As the story of the North Korean disaster continued to unfold, you have to consider the source of the explosion: given the facts of the case, the explosion came either from Russia or the United States! Let us consider the relevant facts:

On April 22, a disaster of almost unimaginable proportions occurred in a key railroad yard in North Korea. We shall first consider the initial reports.

NEWS BRIEF: "SKorean Reports Claim as Many as 3,000 Killed or Injured in NKorean Train Explosions", By Sang-Hun Choe Associated Press Writer, AP Breaking News, Published: Apr 22, 2004

"SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Two fuel trains collided and exploded in a North Korean train station near the Chinese border Thursday, according to South Korean media, which reported large numbers of casualties. One television station said 3,000 people were believed killed or injured. The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, reportedly had passed through the station as he returned from China nine hours earlier. It was not clear what caused the crash, or if it was related to Kim's journey. The trains were carrying oil and liquefied petroleum gas, media reported ... The crash reportedly took place about 1 p.m. in Ryongchon, a town 12 miles from China."

From this initial report, we know that the North Korean dictator had just barely escaped assassination. In fact, he was returning from a visit in China with the President of that country and had planned a major stop-over in this rail station, where he was to deliver a major address. As part of the official preparation for this ceremony, school children were gathered at the site to honor the dictator. At literally the last second, he changed his mind, ordering the conductor to keep the train rolling. At the time of the explosion, dictator Kim would have been standing at Ground Zero of the devastation. Therefore, you have to consider the probability that assassination was the objective.

Further, when I shared this data with the retired Army Major friend of mine, he immediately objected, stating that the reports of this explosion simply do not square with the laws of physics. For two trains crashing to have produced this major explosion would have required that each train would have been carrying many tons of highly explosive TNT, a most remote possibility. This reality is probably the reason we saw a story the next day that the two trains were carrying explosives used in mining.

Now, let us go to a Yahoo News article which describes the extent of the damage in a little more detail.

NEWS BRIEF: "Apocalyptic Scenes in N.Korea, Death Toll at 154", By Jack Kim and Juliana Liu, Yahoo News, April 24, 2004.

"SEOUL/DANDONG, China (Reuters) - The Red Cross described apocalyptic scenes around the site of a train explosion in North Korea but said on Saturday the death toll stood at 154 -- far lower than first feared. North Korea blamed carelessness for Thursday's blast in the town of Ryongchon near the Chinese border, which sent debris flying for miles and caused damage 2.4 miles away. China's Xinhua news agency quoted Korean official Jang Song-gun, in charge of rescue efforts, as saying 154 people had been confirmed killed, including 76 primary schoolchildren ... 'It looks as though a fireball has swept through', John Sparrow, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said on Saturday. There was total destruction for several hundred meters (yards) around Ryongchon's railway station, he added."

Almost 50% of the official death toll was among the school children who were to be part of the official ceremony for dictator Kim. Likely, Kim would have been standing within feet of the assembled children and most assuredly would have been part of the casualty list had he not changed his plans at literally the last second. Now, let us examine one of the most interesting, and revealing, physical facts of this explosion.

"The explosion gouged a massive crater 50 meters (150 feet) deep where the railway depot used to be ... Describing the crater, Rose Dew, country director for Dublin-based relief agency, Concern, told Reuters: "It's about 50 meters (yards) deep, but was probably deeper... Bulldozers were filling it up ... Some 30,000 people had been 'affected'. "[Ibid.]

I asked this Army Major -- whose specialty was logistics -- if a conventional bomb could have created a 150-foot crater. His response was that, yes, a 10,000 pound bomb dropped from an airplane could have easily carved out a 150-foot hole. Similarly, shaped charges planted 75 feet deep could have created such a crater; however, he admitted difficulty in explaining how any person or group of persons could have dug such a device so deep in a country so tightly controlled as North Korea.

However, even a 10,000-pound bomb probably would not cause devastation 2.4 miles away. That kind of devastation seems to indicate some sort of nuclear device.

America possesses several types of bombs which would carry such a weapon and cause such a destruction and dig such a crater. The beautiful thing about this type of American weapon is that it can be launched via missile from as far away as 10,000 miles, be guided to its target by GPS tracking system, and explode with great surprise. The weapon may be either a Fuel Air Bomb or a bunker-buster micro-nuclear bomb; and the missile that delivered such a bomb would likely be a Cruise Missile. It might not have originated from 10,000 miles away, but, no matter how far the missile traveled, it would have impacted with little to no visibility to those on the ground.

Only America and Russia have the capability to deliver such a weapon.

We have seen other reports on the Internet suggesting this bomb might have been nuclear, carried by a two-man Special Forces team. Such reports may be correct. However, the cruise missile would be easier to deliver and its use could have been planned much closer to the planned attack than the insertion of a Special Forces team.

Whether the explosion was caused by a small nuclear device, or by a bunker buster bomb, or by a sophisticated cruise missile delivering a Fuel Air Bomb, the diplomatic impact remains the same: the source of the explosion came from outside North Korea and is likely the United States. Were dictator Kim standing at the podium addressing the assembled school children, he would have been assassinated. Had he been killed, North Korea might have turned diplomatically to a point where her new government would cave to American demands to dismantle the nuclear weapons North Korea is known to already possess. President Bush's policy of unilateral action to prevent a "rogue state" from possessing and/or deploying Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) -- or passing them on to terrorist groups -- would have "paid dividends".

To keep her diplomatic options open, North Korean leaders immediately began to fill in the hole to cover the extent of the damage. Will North Korea react by beginning her long-awaited attack on South Korea? Or, will she and China begin to plan an asymmetrical attack on American interests? Chinese and North Korean doctrine depends heavily on asymmetrical warfare, so you may see her reaction in the form of a nuclear device set off in one of our vulnerable cities.

The United States might also be sending a message to China with this blast. The timing of the attack, plus its location, seemingly speaks to China. This rail center was a critical rail transportation center during the original Korean War and was used by both Chinese and North Korean forces. Further, and most tellingly, April 22, 1951 was the date on which Chinese forces launched their most massive attack on American positions. The attack initially overran many American units and chewed up one division pretty badly. Even today, this rail center is a key location in the North Korean - Chinese transportation network [Asia Times, April 30, 2004].

Are these just coincidences? You be the judge. I think not. I think President Bush was trying to "effect a regime change" in North Korea.

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