Special from Background-Brief.com

By Bill Gertz, The Ring

A new twist on the threat of a North Korea missile strike on the United States was disclosed Monday in Seoul. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service revealed that Pyongyang is developing an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon.

The intelligence service stated in a report to the South Korean legislature that North Korea has purchased Russian-made EMP technology for developing its own pulse arms, Agence France-Presse reported.

EMP was first discovered in the 1950s during nuclear tests in the Pacific. After large nuclear test blasts, all electronics in areas up to 1,000 miles from the point of detonation were disrupted.

In recent years, EMP simulators have evolved from test equipment — used to check the survivability of electronics on nuclear and other weapons — to offensive weapons that can create EMP waves without nuclear blasts. The United States, China, Russia and North Korea are believed to be working on EMP weapons.

Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey Jr. and Peter Pry, a former U.S. intelligence officer who took part in a congressional EMP commission, stated in a recent article that North Korea’s long-range missiles appear “capable of making a catastrophic nuclear EMP attack on the United States.”

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  Seoul intel: N. Korea has purchased Russian EMP technology