The powerful sister of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Kim Yo-jong has threatened to unleash “the most horrible and distressing situation” on South Korea if it continues, as Pyongyang claims, to interfere in their affairs.
Visiting fortifications along the border, Kim said unspecified new countermeasures are on alert and new loudspeakers for “psychological warfare” will be operational in a matter of days.
Meanwhile in the US, Ilhan Omar has responded to claims she was related to her former husband, rejecting the unsubstantiated claim she married her brother.
One source told the New York Post this week that DNA evidence was critical to proving an allegation that Omar married her brother when she wed Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009 because she was trying to help him get a green card.
The Minnesota congresswoman, 44, addressed the allegation during her first television interview since federal investigators searched her Washington home on October 12.
N Korea threatens 'horrible, distressing situation'
The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has issued another chilling threat to South Korea, promising to unleash “the most horrible and distressing situation” should Seoul continue, as Pyongyang claims, to interfere in their affairs.
Kim Yo-jong said on Thursday that unspecified new countermeasures are on alert across the border between the two nations, and that new loudspeakers will be operational by the end of the month, ready to blast anti South Korean propaganda.
Visiting the border on Wednesday, she said the loudspeakers would be used for “psychological warfare” and be in operation along the entire border.
She has justified border fortifications by claiming they will “considerably lower” the danger of military conflict between the North and South.
Kim also accused Seoul of firing warning shots near the border, and threatened to “mercilessly eliminate” South Korean forces if any North Korean personnel were to be harmed as a result.
Seoul has defended its warning shots as “legitimate and defensive measures”.
The latest confrontation follows landmine explosions last month that injured three South Korean soldiers. Seoul blames North Korean mines, but Pyongyang denies responsibility.
North and South Korea have historically used loudspeakers to broadcast propaganda and k-pop across the border, however South Korea stopped this practice in August last year.
Two killed in attack on another Saudi airport
Two people have been killed and eight others injured after another airport in Saudi Arabia was attacked.
King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, in the kingdom’s east, was attacked on Wednesday, the civil aviation authority said on Thursday, leaving a Saudi man and an Indian national dead.
It is unclear at this stage what type of attack it was, although it comes as strikes by Yemen’s Houthis intensify.
The injuries of the people wounded range from minor to critical and they have been transported to hospital, the country’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said on Wednesday local time.
The US State Department has ordered the departure from Saudi Arabia of nonemergency US government employees and their family members, in response to increased hostilities against Saudi Arabia by the Houthis.
The latest attack brings the number of people killed in attacks on Saudi airports this month to 22.
Assessments of the damage to the airport are still being made.
The Houthi attacks follow the collapse in July of a years-long truce in Yemen’s civil war, where the Iran-backed group is fighting the government supported by the Saudi-led coalition.
The Houthis declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia which threatens oil shipments, and began hitting its ships, territory and oil facilities, before launching a major offensive in September in which they seized Yemeni government-held territory along the Red Sea coast.
Congresswoman addresses allegations after raid
Ilhan Omar has responded to claims she was related to her former husband, rejecting the unsubstantiated claim she married her brother.
One source told the New York Post this week that DNA evidence was critical to proving an allegation that Omar married her brother when she wed Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009 because she was trying to help him get a green card.
The Minnesota congresswoman, 44, addressed the allegation during her first television interview since federal investigators searched her Washington home on October 12.
MS NOW host Chris Hayes asked whether she had any family relationship with former husband Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
“Not to my knowledge,” she replied, insisting the attention had been designed to “freak” her out.
Omar said the rumour originated on a Somali blog before conservative activists picked it up, describing supposed witness accounts identifying Elmi as her brother as “insane”.
The immigration investigation reportedly centres on whether her birth date was misstated in paperwork that allowed her to obtain citizenship through her father in 2000. Omar denies wrongdoing in that regard.
She said agents arrived about 6am, searched for four to five hours and removed 17 items, including phones, notebooks, a vintage camera and a Somali-language book.
She described the agents as “intrusive but polite”, but simultaneously accused the administration of staging the search for political effect.
“They had to do something, I believe, to say, hey, look, we raided her house,” she alleged.
Omar also questioned the scrutiny of documents completed by her late father.
“It’s also very convenient because my dad is no longer alive,” she said. “So it’s another thing they can drag on forever.”
She now plans to move, saying the attention surrounding the search has made her feel unsafe at the property.
“I can’t continue to live there,” she said.