N. Korea sold missiles to al-Qaeda, Taliban?

Well, ain’t this f*cking great?

A powerful Afghan insurgent leader and a man identified as Osama Bin Laden’s financial adviser purchased ground-to-air missiles from North Korea in 2005, according to an uncorroborated U.S. intelligence report released by Wikileaks on Sunday.

“On 19 November 2005, Hezb-Islami party leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar [sic] and Dr. Amin [no last name], Osama Bin Ladin’s financial advisor, both flew to North Korea departing from Iran,” the undated report said.

“While in North Korea, the two confirmed a deal with the North Korean government for remote controlled rockets for use against American and coalition aircraft,” said the report, whose origin could not be determined from the version published on the Wikileaks site.

Nameless Cave, Afghanistan —> Iran —> North Korea. How’s that for a travel schedule? Poor bastards probably thought there could be no bigger shit hole than Afghanistan. Strangely, all I can think of is the opening to this:

Joshua at One Free Korea suggests:

Knowing that there are congressional staffers who are reading this, it would be my respectful suggestion that they take a very close look at just what State told the intelligence oversight committees about North Korea’s suspected sponsorship of terrorism in the months leading up to October 11, 2008, when President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Seriously, though, next time you here someone claim North Korea’s just afraid of America, kick him in the nuts, because no country remotely respectful of American might would even countenance selling missiles to al-Qaeda or the Taliban (or transfer nuclear technology to Syria, sink a South Korean warship, etc.). Pyongyang does what it does not because it’s frightened, but because it thinks — no, it knows — not a single bomb will fall on it.