48-hour deadline: Korea about to explode?

Missile deployment detected

Meanwhile, North Korea is preparing to conduct short-to-medium range missile launches, a South Korean source has told South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.
The source said the information came from radar-detection systems operated jointly by South Korean and U.S. military forces.
In addition, South Korean media is citing intelligence reports that the North Korean army is moving artillery units toward the border.
Daniel Pinkston, North East Asia deputy project director of the International Crisis Group, told the website NKNews.org that the public nature and specificity of Pyongyang’s ultimatum puts Seoul in a difficult position.
He noted North Korean leader Kim Jung-un reportedly conducted a meeting of his Central Military Commission, the CMC, on Thursday night.
“We don’t have the minutes from last night’s CMC meeting, but the question is: Did they discuss and plan and point whereby the KPA would back down? Or do they plan to carry out the threat of punishment?” said Pinkston.
“If the former, they can back down without serious domestic audience costs, because the regime is not accountable to the public. If the latter, this sets up a commitment trap for the leadership because not carrying out the threat can be perceived as weakness internally by the coalition – especially the KPA and the internal security service,” Pinkston said.
John Grisaff, director of intelligence for NKNews.org, said in his publication’s report that actual preparations for war would include the mobilization of large armored and mechanized units of the KPA, which hasn’t been reported.
“The movement of long-range artillery, however, should still be considered a potential threat as this puts more such weapons within range of Seoul and closer to other targets in general,” he said.

Japan threatened?

Amid the growing confrontation are unconfirmed reports of demonstrations of military power by North Korea that are far more serious than artillery fire.
A Defense Department source told WND that such speculation includes that North Korea may already have shot Nodong and SCUD missiles not only at facilities south of Seoul but also over Japan, with Japanese defense forces shooting them down.
The source said Japan “is mobilizing forces now, but nobody has said anything about deployment.”
He said that the last time North Korea shot a missile, while only a test, it prompted Japan to “come very close to scrapping their constitution,” which allows them to act only in self-defense, and go on the offensive against North Korea.
South Korean sources confirm to WND that military units in North Korea have been placed in a “wartime state.”
North Korea’s Korea Central News Agency has warned that the peninsula is “inching close to the brink of war” due to what it said were “reckless provocations” by South Korea.
Norwegian film director Morten Traavik, who currently is in Pyongyang, told NKNews.org that despite what he termed “rhetoric,” there was little sign of tension in the capital.
“The mood in Pyongyang, just like I suppose it is down south in Seoul, is completely normal,” he said. “People going about their business, cicadas chirping in the trees and the occasional propaganda mobile blaring patriotic songs; but that’s daily fare here anyway.
“Of course, people are fully aware of the current situation … but the (people) I’ve talked to say that they’re ready for whatever happens.”