http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryongchon_disaster
The Ryongchŏn disaster was a train disaster that occurred on April 22, 2004, in the town of Ryongchŏn, North Korea, near the border with the People's Republic of China.
The disaster occurred when flammable cargo exploded at Ryongchon Station at around 13:00 local time (04:00 GMT). The news was released by South Korean media outlets, which reported that up to 3,000 people had been killed or injured in the blast and subsequent fires.[1] The North Korean government declared a state of emergency in the region, but little information about the accident has been made public by the North Korean government. Shortly after the accident the North Korean government cut telephone lines to the rest of the world (an action correspondents attributed either to a desire to inhibit foreign reporting or to prevent their own population from learning news about the accident).[2][3]
The Red Cross was allowed into the area, in an unusual concession from the North Korean authorities, becoming the only outside agency to see the disaster area. According to the initial agency report, 160 people were killed and 1,300 were injured in the disaster.[4] However, official casualty reports the following day listed 54 deaths and 1,249 injuries.[5] A wide area was reported to have been affected, with some airborne debris reportedly falling across the border in China. (Satellite pictures published by the BBC purported to show widespread damage in the town, but these were later retracted—they actually show Baghdad from an earlier date, and the strong black-white contrast was misinterpreted.[6]) The Red Cross reported that 1,850 houses and buildings had been destroyed and another 6,350 had been damaged.[4]
On April 23, the United Nations received an appeal for international aid from North Korea's government. On April 24, a few diplomats and aid workers were allowed into the country to assess the disaster.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il passed through the station several hours before the explosion as he returned from a meeting in China. It was suggested that the explosion might have been an assassination attempt, but South Korean intelligence services believed that it was an accident.[9] One theory is that one of the trains involved was carrying fuel from China. If the incident did involve a train collision, it has been suggested that the cause of the accident may have been a miscommunication related to the changes in train timetables due to Kim Jong-il's itinerary.[9]
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A curiosity about the incident is related to Operation Orchard. Shortly after the incident, a Syrian airliner landed in North Korea, purportedly to deliver aid. However, they retrieved the bodies of Syrian citizens that had been in the explosion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_ ... e_activity
In 2001, the Mossad, Israel's external intelligence service, was profiling newly inducted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Visits by North Korean dignitaries, which focused on advanced arms deliveries, were noticed. Aman, Israel's military intelligence department, suggested nuclear arms were being discussed, but the Mossad dismissed this theory. In spring 2004, U.S. intelligence reported multiple communications between Syria and North Korea, and traced the calls to a desert location called al-Kibar. Unit 8200, Israel's signals intelligence and codebreaking unit, added the location to its watch list.[17]
On April 22, 2004, a massive explosion occurred on a North Korean freight train heading for the port of Namp'o. According to British intelligence writer Gordon Thomas, the Mossad had learned that dozens of Syrian nuclear technicians were in a compartment adjoining a sealed wagon. According to Thomas, the Syrians had arrived in North Korea to collect the fissionable material stored in the wagon. All of the technicians were killed in the train explosion. Their bodies were flown to Syria in lead-encased coffins aboard a Syrian military plane. A wide area around the explosion site was cordoned off for days as North Korean soldiers in anti-contamination suits collected wreckage and sprayed the area. Mossad analysts suspected they were trying to recover weapons-grade plutonium. Since the explosion, the Mossad tracked about a dozen trips by Syrian military officers and scientists to Pyongyang, where they met with high-ranking North Korean officials.[18]
The Daily Telegraph, citing anonymous sources, reported that in December 2006, a top Syrian official arrived in London under a false name. The Mossad had detected a booking for the official in a London hotel, and dispatched at least ten undercover agents to London. The agents were split into three teams. One group was sent to Heathrow Airport to identify the official as he arrived, a second to book into his hotel, and a third to monitor his movements and visitors. Some of the operatives were from the Kidon Division, which specializes in assassinations, and the Negev Division, which specializes in breaking into homes, embassies, and hotel rooms to install bugging devices. On the first day of his visit, he visited the Syrian embassy and then went shopping. Kidon operatives closely followed him, while Negev operatives broke into his hotel room and found his laptop. A computer expert then installed software that allowed the Mossad to monitor his activities on the computer. When the computer material was examined at Mossad headquarters, officials found blueprints and hundreds of pictures of the Kibar facility in various stages of construction, and correspondence. One photograph showed North Korean nuclear official Chon Chibu meeting with Ibrahim Othman, Syria's atomic energy agency director. Though the Mossad had originally planned to kill the official in London, it was decided to spare his life following the discovery.[19] Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was notified. The following month, Olmert formed a three-member panel to report on Syria's nuclear program. Six months later, Brigadier-General Yaakov Amidror, one of the panel's members, informed Olmert that Syria was working with North Korea and Iran on a nuclear facility. Iran had funneled $1 billion to the project, and planned on using the Kibar facility to replace Iranian facilities if Iran was unable to complete its uranium enrichment program.[17]
In July 2007, an explosion occurred in Musalmiya, northern Syria. The official Sana news agency said 15 Syrian military personnel were killed and 50 people were injured. The agency reported only that "very explosive products" blew up after a fire broke out at the facility. The September 26 edition of Jane's Defence Weekly claimed that the explosion happened during tests to weaponise a Scud-C missile with mustard gas.[20]
A senior U.S. official told ABC News that, in early summer 2007, Israel had discovered a suspected Syrian nuclear facility, and that the Mossad then "managed to either co-opt one of the facility's workers or to insert a spy posing as an employee" at the suspected Syrian nuclear site, and through this was able to get pictures of the target from on the ground."[21] Two months before the strike, Israel launched the Ofek-7 spy satellite into space. The satellite was geo-positioned to watch activity at the complex.[18]
In mid August 2007, Israeli commandos from the Sayeret Matkal reconnaissance unit covertly raided the suspected Syrian nuclear facility and brought nuclear material back to Israel. Two helicopters ferried twelve commandos to the site in order to get photographic evidence and soil samples. The commandos were probably dressed in Syrian uniforms. Although the mission was successful, it had to be aborted earlier than planned after the Israelis were spotted by Syrian soldiers. Soil analysis revealed traces of nuclear activity.[17][22][23] Anonymous sources reported that once material was tested and confirmed to have come from North Korea, the United States approved an Israeli attack on the site.[16] Senior U.S. officials later claimed that they were not involved in or approved the attack, but were informed in advance.[24] In his memoir Decision Points, President George W. Bush wrote that Prime Minister Olmert requested that the U.S. bomb the Syrian site, but Bush refused, saying the intelligence was not definitive on whether the plant was part of a nuclear weapons program. Bush claimed that Olmert did not ask for a green light for an attack and that he did not give one, but that Olmert acted alone and did what he thought was necessary to protect Israel.[25] Another report indicated that Israel planned to attack the site as early as July 14, but some U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, preferred a public condemnation of Syria, thereby delaying the military strike until Israel feared the information would leak to the press.[26] The Sunday Times also reported that the mission was "personally directed" by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.[16]
Three days before the attack, a North Korean cargo ship carrying materials labeled as cement docked in the Syrian port of Tartus.[27] Gordon Thomas wrote that as the ship was being unloaded, a Mossad operative photographed the process with a hidden camera.[18]
