North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Breaking down North Korea’s claims about alleged South Korean drone incursion

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

North Korea claimed on Friday that a South Korean drone scattered anti-regime leaflets over Pyongyang, threatening military retaliation if such “provocations” continue. NK News CEO Chad O’Carroll and Seoul Correspondent Ifang Bremer join the podcast for a special roundtable episode to discuss Pyongyang’s claims, as well as who was behind the incursions.  They also talk […]

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Chad, Yifeng, welcome on the show. Hi there. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Two big stories to talk about in the last week. Let's start with the biggest one. What happened over the skies of Pyongyang in the, well, sometime in apparently three times in early October. I can kick that off.

I basically on Friday night, we were all finished with work we thought, and then very late, suddenly we got an alert. North Korea claimed suddenly that a South Korean drone scattered anti-regime leaflets over Pyongyang and threatening military retaliation if such provocations continue. And this allegedly happened, as you mentioned, on October 3 and 9. Yeah, and also on... what was another day? Anyway, three times in October. So yeah, it was quite a big surprise.

We didn't really see that coming. Right. And now when North Korea first reported this, was there a tendency to take it seriously or I think that can't be right? Yeah, I think we were surprised, but pretty quick pictures, photos started coming out from North Green State media. Now these are very not so clear pictures. You basically have to imagine if you haven't seen them, pitch black sky and a gray shaped drone, very small. So it was not very clear, but allegedly evidence. And then after that much clearer photos came out also from North Green State media of the flyers that were allegedly spread over

Pyongyang with the help of these drones. Right. So it would be, first of all, just having a drone over Pyongyang with the help of these drones. Right, so it would be first of all, just having a drone over Pyongyang would be an invasion of North Korea's airspace, but then actually dropping leaflets with a political message over the city is quite something. Chad, what did you make of it when you first saw the story? Yes, so I was quite surprised at the level of evidence that the North Koreans posted. Firstly, the...

The? The Ifang's already mentioned the photograph of the drones in the night sky, but then later on, or almost simultaneously with photographs of the leaflets themselves, no photograph of a crashed or captured drone though. Yeah, which suggests that the drones made it safely out of North Korean airspace or they've landed elsewhere and not been found yet. But that's quite a big difference from, for example, South, North Korean drones, which were entering South Korean airspace around 2014, 15. And that you might remember those blue ones that were found by the rock military.

We haven't seen anything like that. but yeah, it does suggest whoever did this had access to sophisticated technology and was able to pull off quite a, uh, challenging operation. Yes. Now that leads us to the really big question. Who, who did this? And you've got in a story that you published today, Chad, on NK Pro, you've got three competing alternative explanations.

Yeah. So I think the least likely is that this was a false flag operation with North Koreans just, you know, creating the evidence. I haven't, I don't recall them ever fabricating something of this scale, completely out of, of the blue. So that leaves two other options. One was NGOs. So it was a prominent defective activist who did state an intention to launch

leaflets in January, 2023. Right. That's Pakistan hack, isn't it? Yeah. January 2023. Right. That's Pakistan hack, isn't it? Yeah. The problem is commercial drones that you can buy online, etc. The most range I could really find was about 250 kilometers, which you could potentially do a round trip with from maritime location. But those drones look very different to the ones in the picture. Look, the ones in the picture, if it's a fixed wing design and it might well be using jet fuel rather than battery packs to allow for speed and range. Those are things that are not so easy to buy as civilians. And then the other thing is that devising a communication system or coding in, hard coding in a flight path with exact launch locations for the leaflets,

that would be for an NGO, I believe that would be a pretty sophisticated operation. That being said, we do know that non state actors like Hezbollah and the Houthis from Yemen have been doing long range drone operations, although they do have a lot of support from Iran. So that the NGO, you know, we can't rule it out. But I think it's probably not the cause here. My money would be on South Korea's military. This is basically for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Yoon Seok-yul has already launched drones into North Korea. You might remember in December, 2022, when North Korea sent some drones in, Yoon sent drones back into DPRK territory, uh, in a sort of tit for tat exchange. back into DPRK territory in a sort of tit for tat exchange. Secondly, the content of the leaflet broadly aligns with some of the material that South Korea's military is broadcasting using the loudspeakers. Me and Jongmin Kim went to the border a few weeks ago and recorded what was coming out of those loudspeakers. And it was there was a lot of personal criticism

of Kim Jong-un and drawing attention to double standards around his livelihoods and the livelihood of others, which is a key theme here. The other thing is that although South Korea's defence minister, who was in an audit when this happened and was asked on the spot, although he denied South Korea doing it in the heat of the momentsequent Joint Chief of Staff announcements on this have maintained ambiguity kind of similar to what the Israeli government Israeli Defense Forces do when there are suspected actions taken by Israel that breach international law, but result in the, you know know killing of a terrorist in an embassy in

Damascus for example they just don't comment so the JCS have not refused to confirm or deny that also is an interesting aspect and then the other thing is just just a small point is that there are a couple of stealth drones and long-wing drones that South Korea's military has recently introduced that kind of appear to match the approximate profile of the photo we saw from North Korea, but it is a very blurry photo. So we can't be sure on that. Yeah, and I think some of those drones are on display on the October 1 and forces day parade here in Seoul.

Yeah, yeah. And then the other thing is that if South Korea did do it, it would be consistent broadly with the UN administration's position on responding to North Korean quote provocations with quote, more than proportional measures. And we've just had you'll remember last couple of weeks, every day there were balloons coming in from South Korea. Friends of friends were sending videos to me of like just like literally of trash balloons bursting in the middle of apartment blocks and so on. So you could argue that you had to do something and this is, if they did do it, it's, you know, it's a very effective strategy, I think, and really adds significant pain to the North Korean effort to try and send balloons and trash to South Korea.

Let me go back to Yifeng. Yifeng, what's the danger in North Korea in reporting this incursion by drone? So what kind of risk is the North Korean government taking in reporting that this happened? Yeah, well, that's a very good question, actually. We were quite surprised at that. There were very clear photos of these leaflets in North Korean state media, and that includes state media that's targeted

at a domestic audience. And the contents of these leaflets, the photos are blurred, but they're not like really heavily blurred. So you could still kind of make up what it says. And what we can see is that it includes the prices of consumer goods like corn and rice. And at the same time,

it shows what we think are luxury goods. For example, a coat that Kim Jong Un's daughter, Kim Jae, often seen wearing that obviously cost a fortune and what seems to be a picture of Kim Jong Un's watch. So presumably these flyers compare the cost of rice with the luxury goods that the North Korean leadership is wearing. And as we all know, most people in North Korea, or at least outside of the capital, do not have access to sufficient food. So it's quite sensitive.

And it was quite a surprise to me and also my colleague Colin here in the Anki News office that they basically spread out the photos of these leaflets. Yeah, and also, of course, just the fact that North Korea is basically saying, our air defenses are unable to stop South Korean drones from coming. our air defenses are unable to stop South Korean drones from coming. I mean, that's by not not showing the drone captured or brought down. Not only have they shown that the drone is able to come in through North Korean air defenses, they've kind of let it let it slip out through North Korean defenses, too. And now everyone knows that.

And that's that's a big, big problem, too. Now, what's the danger in South Korea? If it is the South Korean military, what's the danger in South Korea, if it is the South Korean military, what's the danger in South Korea doing this? Well, I think what we've seen since this all started that North Korea has been, you know, really escalating its rhetoric towards the South. We now know that troops, artillery troops have been ordered to get ready to shoot in North Korea, those kinds of things.

So it definitely increases the risk of at least a small conflict, you know, and at the same time, as we all know, President Yun is not the most popular president. So he definitely took a risky move the way I see it, because maybe we don't know that yet. There will be also a feeling of uncomfortable feeling among the South Korean general public because of how quickly we see tensions rising now. But that's yet to be seen. Yeah, really, I guess this is a question to both of you,

but it requires a little bit of historical context. In the year 2000, around the time of the first inter-Korean summit between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the South Korean government officially halted its state-run leaflet campaign as part of the Sunshine Policy, hoping to foster better relations. Now, since then, it's been civil civilian groups, you know, citizens groups that have started sending leaflets. After 24 years, it just seems such a big step for the rock government to start re-leafleting now and also without admitting it. What are your thoughts on that?

Both of you, Chad, let's start with you first. Well, yeah, things have changed in an important way. So Kim Yo-jong in 2020, she started making a big deal about these South Korean NGOs, right? And you'll remember that there was a whole exchange of threats that resulted in the destruction of the liaison office. Then the leafleting was banned, groups were banned for multiple years and then the UN administration undid that and it's clear that it's still a very painful issue for South Korea, for North Korea and we know that because it's, you know, their Achilles heel essentially,, foreign information coming in anti-regime information. And I think that it's just got to the point where

it's so intolerable for the North Koreans. And yet, Yoon, for all his unpopularity is taking a very principled stand on this and insisting that civic groups should be able to do it. And then when you see then North Korea responding with government launched trash balloons day after day after day, it's been months now. And there's been loudspeakers introduced that hasn't stopped it. I suspect that the South Korean government or military, I don't know who it who it is, just basically has used ear and said, look, we shouldn't take this any anymore. We've got to hit them where it hurts. Let's send in leaflets on the 70 79th

anniversary of the founding of the was it DPRK or the party? I can't remember October 10. Korean people's army, I believe Korean peoples up. Sorry. Yeah, you're right. Let's send let's send in it's a provocative move, but we might gain the upper hand here and deter North Korea from doing more balloon launches because nothing else has worked so far. And there is precedent for escalation on the South Korean side leading to de escalation on the North Korean side. So if we go back to the landmine incident

of 2015, South Korean soldiers were maimed by a North Korean mine planted on the southern side of the military demarcation line in Panmunjom. And in the wake of that, South Korea turned on their loudspeakers and then North Korea fired shells at the South Korean loudspeaker location. And then the South Korean military let rip and fired, I think, 36 rounds of artillery into North Korean territory. And then right after that, the North Koreans came running for talks at Kaesong and there were also movements on the US side. Then it really did look like there could be a genuine confrontation over that.

And I think the goal here is to try and stop North Korean, it's tracks and it, you know, I think it might just work. Now this went by the time this podcast comes out, we might have seen an incident, but I have a feeling on this that we're going to see this be the end of the balloons and no further need for, if this was South Korea, we were kind of assuming it is no further need for them to send drones in to distribute leaflets over Pyongyang. I think it's going to be. That's it.

That is quite a bold prediction. No, I mean, it could well be, uh, I'm, I'm, I've gotten so used to these, uh, balloon alerts on my phone that it's hard to imagine that suddenly we'll stop. But who knows? Yeah. Um, perhaps it takes a very risky move to put an end to this before people actually get injured here in South Korea. There have been small injuries, but no big injuries so far from

these balloons. So yeah, yeah, let's hope that it does stop on both sides and things go back to relative calm and tranquility. We'll see how that goes. And it would also it would also fit in the escalation ladder, right? Like, you first had these loudspeakers, well, that didn't seem to work. So what you can decide to just leave it be, let it be and let these North Korean balloons just come flying in. People are not happy about that.

Then if there's a next step, then this could definitely be one that would be considered not involving, you know, actual military exchange of fire, for example. So yeah, there's a lot to say for the argument that this could be indeed a South Korean operation. Yeah, I just say despite all the noise we're seeing, like this crazy Kim, your junk statements, really long warnings and it's fascinating to me

that after warning earlier this year that even a 0.01 millimeter incursion will be seen as, you know, casus belli for a conflict. The North Koreans are showing restraint will be seen as, you know, Cassis Belli for a conflict. The North Koreans are showing restraint and they're just framing lots of rhetorical warnings. I mean, the idea that the Korean people's army needs to issue a press statement to say that it's preparing itself.

Its artillery should be prepared all the time to fight. You know, the ROK always say that, the USFK say they need to be ready to fight tonight. I mean, military needs to be prepared all times to fight and to fire artillery, doesn't need a press statement to do that. So I think we're just seeing the North Koreans trying to hype up for the threat to try and deter South Korea. And I think the key thing is whether or not North Korea decides to launch more balloons, because if they do, then it's, you know, South Korea may be inclined to, to send more drones. And then the sort of curve ball of all of this is, if we're wrong, and it's actually

an NGO, well, they might just launch anyway, and then they can just draw everyone into an unwanted confrontation. Let's keep our fingers crossed for restraint and de-escalation on both sides. Now we've gone a little bit over time so we won't be able to handle our second story but we encourage our listeners and readers to get onto nknews.org and read about the other big story of last week amongst all the other wonderful stories of course that have come up every day on NK News. The other big story of last week, amongst all the other wonderful stories, of course, that have come up every day on NK News. The other big story of last week was the Supreme People's Assembly meeting and the more or less non-event around the redefining of the border, but there has been some blowing up going on, some explosions.

So check that out on nknews.org. Get yourself up to speed. And we'll be back again next week with another short episode. Chad and E-Funk, thanks for coming on the show today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Score more for less with our NK News Shop discount campaign. Ready to upgrade your wardrobe with some unique flair? At the NK News Shop, discount campaign. shop.nknews.org and make the most of this limited time offer. That's shop.nknews.org. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of our podcast episode for today. Our thanks go to Brian Betts and Alana Hill for facilitating this episode and to our post recording producer genius, Gabby Magnuson, who cuts out

all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions, and fixes the audio levels. Thank you and listen again next time.