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Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

329 points by matt4077 10y ago

anigbrowl 10y ago
I disapprove of assassination but I've got to admit this one scores 10/10 for sheer style.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Certainly the attempt to kill Castro, of all people, with an exploding cigar should rank higher. Just imagine how that CIA brain storming went: A: "We're tasked with killing Castro. Again. Any ideas? Anything? Nothing is stupid! Castro! Go! B: "Cigars" C: "Boom!" A: "I see we're in mind-melt here. No wonder the western world trusts us with their lives during these troubling times" If you insist on actually successful assassinations, and score it on cruelty as well, using Polonium should win. The victim doesn't only die a miserable death. It takes two weeks during which they can still give interviews, know they're going to die, and even knows exactly who did it.
  - amyjess 10y ago
    And for sheer elegance, I'll give it to the assassination of Georgi Markov by being poked with a ricin-tipped umbrella.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      He was dead the very instant that ball was shot into him... he could have realized what had happened that instant and no one could have saved him; it really was diabolical.
      - Gustomaximus 10y ago
        Are you dead? If you got a knife and cut out that section of skin/muscle fairly quickly is it too late? But it's terrifying. Also that video of the CIA people testifying about the heart attack drug. I find the 'we dont know' if it was natural vs assassination scarier as nefarious people are more able and probably willing to use it. When you see all the type of things the CIA was up to 50/60/70's there must be some crazy stuff we'll never know about.
        M_Grey 10y ago
        I honestly don't know about how quickly you'd have to cut out the affected region, or even amputate the limb. My guess is that if you were very lucky and it missed all major blood vessels, you'd have seconds to act decisively. Maybe. As to the rest, yeah definitely. Just consider the B2 bomber. I always wonder what's hidden away being tested in the same way that was.
  - MichaelMoser123 10y ago
    I think it's a myth. He didn't need to import any cigars to Cuba and if they could get as close as slipping cigars into his supply they could have killed him anyway.
  - groby_b 10y ago
    Given that they tried pretty much anything... There were 600+ attempts on Castro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/638_Ways_to_Kill_Castro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/638_Ways_to_Kill_Castro Granted, that's a figure from Cuban counterintelligence, so maybe slightly too high ;) But most of them are documented. And not only 'weird' ideas like exploding cigars - the last one, in 2000, involved 90kg of explosives: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38121583 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38121583
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      The method seemed to be specifically selected to implicate only one person, without any direct evidence that could prove that he ordered it. It's already bad enough to execute political rivals in your own territory, but when you go and do a public "message" assassination in another country, people might start to think you may be too dangerous to be a head of state--even those in your nominally allied states. The best that can be said about it is that at least it was a plan that actually worked. The infamous "Operation Mongoose" attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, including the exploding cigars, seem more like episodes of a reality show about trying to assassinate Castro than actual murder plots. In this episode, Felix Leiter puts tuberculosis in Castro's scuba wetsuit. In this episode, Jack Ryan convinces Castro's ex-girlfriend Marita to poison him. In this episode, Tamara Knight tries to shave off Castro's beard and draw a dickbutt on his forehead. In this episode, Sam Fisher puts a gigantic snap trap on Castro's palace patio, and baits it with a can of New Coke. In this episode, Sterling Archer steals Castro's "World's Best Dictator" coffee mug, and replaces it with a poisoned red Solo cup. In this episode, Maxwell Smart removes the non-slip strips from the bottom of Castro's bathtub and gives him a basket of scented bath oil beads. In contrast, North Korea's plan is "wipe military-grade nerve agent all over his face." Maybe setting it up to look like an episode of a prank-based reality show was an attempt to frame the CIA?
      - groby_b 10y ago
        600+ attempts to frame the CIA? Some involving large amounts of explosives, and snipers? That's what I call dedication!
  - doubleplusgood 10y ago
    Israel assassinated The Engineer via exploding cellphone.
- gozur88 10y ago
  What is it with these tinpot strongmen? Polonium, mortars, nerve gas... in my day when you wanted someone dead you just shot him.
  - wbl 10y ago
    Do you know about Georgi Markov? Bulgaria concerned about the propaganda fallout if they killed him and it was known, so they injected him with ricin instead. Mossad attempted to use poison to assassinate the head of Hezbollah. It went comically wrong, with his driver chasing down the assassins with a rolled-up newspaper.
    - Lordarminius 10y ago
      > Mossad attempted to use poison to assassinate the head of Hezbollah. It went comically wrong, with his driver chasing down the assassins with a rolled-up newspaper. Mossad successfully poisoned the head of Hezbollah by spraying a delayed action toxin into his ear. His driver (who did not comprehend what had happened, and whom he was dealing with) chased after the assassins who in turn fled fearing he was a bodyguard. Nazrallah was for certain a dead man and was only saved by the personal intervention of the the Jordanian king who ordered the Israeli ambassador to provide an antidote or deal with the consequences of a hostile Jordanian state. The Sheik was administered the antidote on his hospital bed and survived. There was nothing to laugh about.
      - owenversteeg 10y ago
        I believe you've conflated two assassination attempts, one on Hassan Nasrallah, one on Khaled Mashal. Mashal was the one in 1997 where the antidote was turned over by the Israeli government. Nasrallah was in 2008, and also survived after being treated by Iranian doctors.
        Lordarminius 10y ago
        > I believe you've conflated two assassination attempts .... You are right. My mistake.
gwern 10y ago
Does VX explain how the two women survived despite using bare hands to administer an apparently skin-absorbable poison? It has binary agent formulations, so each women could have one half on her hand and avoid any contamination by swiping very fast.
- sparky_z 10y ago
  Do we know they were bare-handed?
  - philip1209 10y ago
    Seems to have been a spray bottle of some kind? > Family members and Indonesian officials have said they believe she was tricked into thinking that the attack on Mr. Kim was part of a comedy video, involving spraying liquid on unwitting victims in public. The Malaysian authorities have said that both women were aware that the liquid was toxic.
    - ericdykstra 10y ago
      Tricking two people into using binary chemical weapons to kill someone under the guise of it being a prank sounds like something out of Hitman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitman_(series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitman_(series)). I find it highly unlikely this kind of high-profile assassination would be left up to unwitting amateurs to carry out, though.
      - rangibaby 10y ago
        > I find it highly unlikely this kind of high-profile assassination would be left up to unwitting amateurs to carry out, though. I would have agreed, but the LOL shirt? Whoever set this up (DPRK or not) has a very dark sense of humor.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
ultrahate 10y ago
Would you have celebrated the assassination of Hitler if one had been performed? I know that's a stretching comparison, but it's not too far off. Dude was garbage, deserved EXACTLY what he got. Hell, NK even runs concentration camps, so it's really not even that wild of a comparison.
- sb057 10y ago
  But this guy was an enemy of North Korea. That's why he was assassinated...
  - ultrahate 10y ago
    He was Un's half brother. First line of the article.
    - caf 10y ago
      Yeah, and has been living in exile since before Kim Jong-Il died.
- vpribish 10y ago
  This dude seems to have been more of a lazy dissident than part of the regime. username checks out in any case.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  A totally legit question. Yes I would have approved but there you had a state of open war. Short of that unhappy circumstance, assassination is usually either a tool of oppression or an act of war, neither of which are things I'd want to perpetuate. Once hostilities have been declared then the ethical calculus changes significantly.
- dang 10y ago
  We've banned this account for trolling. Please don't create accounts to break the HN guidelines with. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13720426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13720426 and marked it off-topic.
tlow 10y ago
If we are talking about V-Series Agents, we might as well talk about the secret Soviet Program to develop additional V-series compounds[1] that would be undetectable by the west. It is important to note that there are many vectors of entry for a V-series agent, and in this case, evidence points to an atomized version, as opposed to the dermal administration which is more common among this class. An atomized version targeting the respiratory system and not the dermal would explain why two women attempting to aid "with bare hands" would not have been harmed. Beyond VX, there exist a plethora of other analogous chemicals, namely the G-Series[2], VE[3], VG[4], VM[5], VR[6] and VP[7]. A notable commonality among these compounds is that very little is known about their effects outside of military research (ie not shared). Given the military nature of these compounds, there is a reason to believe that this was a military assassination. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent [2] Sarin is a G-series agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VE_(nerve_agent) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VE_(nerve_agent) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VG_(nerve_agent) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VG_(nerve_agent) [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(nerve_agent) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(nerve_agent) [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VR_(nerve_agent) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VR_(nerve_agent) [7] https://books.google.com/books?id=DQw2hVGe0aMC&lpg=PA72&ots=eYb1G3m7Cl&dq=%2B%22vp%20nerve%22&pg=PA72#v=onepage&q=+%22vp%20nerve%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=DQw2hVGe0aMC&lpg=PA72&ots=...
- frankydp 10y ago
  It is worth mentioning that a powder form of nerve agents was also created during the time that these things were the fad. Mirzayanov covered the functionality of these binary powder based chems with 5-7x efficacy over VX. It would be highly unlikely for NK have functional quantities of these though. Edit: Also it would be possible to use a non-military Acetylcholinesterase inhibitor for this attack.
  - tlow 10y ago
    In reply to "Edit": Oh? Really? And might you have a compound in mind? Seriously. Do you have inside information on a novel Nerve Agent that has not been studied for military use but is effective?
sasas 10y ago
Interesting tid-bit from Wikipedia [1] In fiscal year 2008, the US Department of Defense released a study finding that the U.S. had dumped at least 124 tons of VX into the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of New York/New Jersey and Florida, between 1969 and 1970. This material consisted of nearly 22,000 M55 rockets, 19 bulk containers holding 1,400 pounds (640 kg) each, and one M23 chemical landmine. [25] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)#US_VX_stockpile_elimination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)#US_VX_stockpi...
- tlow 10y ago
  Yep. And who knows what the affects of that were. But I do not agree with the claim that this is interesting in this context as it seems irrelevant to the discussion.
  - jdoliner 10y ago
    The article seems to suggest that became common practice in 1990, before when the parent is talking about. I'm not sure how you can claim it's inaccurate and that the parent should RTFA, it's a verbatim quote from the article isn't it?
    - tlow 10y ago
      I'm merely suggesting that the comment claims to be interesting and related but because it is not directly related to the subject it seems off-topic and irrelevant.
      - ehnto 10y ago
        Nor did he suggest it was. He said it was an interesting tid bit from the article. It was indeed an interesting tid bit. I also found your comment about newer practices interesting, and neither comment rebuts the other.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
sndean 10y ago
I wonder if they used this binary combination: O-Ethyl O-2-diisopropylaminoethyl methylphosphonite and sulfur [0][1]. Not sure if that would be consistent with one being in a spray bottle. [0] http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/831901-overview http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/831901-overview [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QL_(chemical) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QL_(chemical)
- tlow 10y ago
  It will likely never be known what compound, but the "spray bottle" tells us that the agent was targeting respiratory system, not dermal. However the use of V-Series agent is a strong indicator of military assassination as almost all research on these chemicals is confined to secret military research. The Russians have admitted to the synthesis of more than 100 more novel V-series nerve agents.[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent While I'm not convinced a binary compound was needed in this case, it is an interesting theory!
  - aladoc99 10y ago
    "the "spray bottle" tells us that the agent was targeting respiratory system, not dermal. " I'm not sure this follows. If the cloth was impregnated with one of the binary components and the other was sprayed on the cloth, then VX would be synthesized right there in contact with the skin. I don't know that you could be sure a lethal dose would be inhaled in one or two seconds.
    - jabl 10y ago
      I imagine NK is the sort of regime that doesn't have moral qualms about testing this on, say, political prisoners, before using it in an actual assassination attempt.
jbenz 10y ago
The Rock came out when I was 13 so needless to say, I'm a big fan. I absolutely thought VX Nerve Agent was fictional until today.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  To be fair, the form as it existed in that movie sort of was... although not by much.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  I'm in exactly the same boat as you and thought VX was fictional until about 10 years later when a mainstream media article made a reference to it.
- flukus 10y ago
  Not VX, but don't you remember this as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack
  - mattnumbe 10y ago
    I actually ended up in the same article because VX is related to オウム真理教(Aum Shinrikyo), the group that was responsible for the gas attacks in Tokyo. They were also manufacturing VX and are the only ones on record to have used it to commit a murder, until now I guess... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo
L_226 10y ago
I had thought it was going to be a fentanyl or carfentanyl aerosol spray, I suppose that might have rendered him incoherent sooner though. The use of VX seems like bragging really (as if the act wasn't already adolescent enough).
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Oh yeah... like using Polonium to kill Litvinenko... this is all about sending a message.
  - L_226 10y ago
    Indeed, and the message was "I'm insecure about my position".
    - chongli 10y ago
      Emotionally insecure, sure, but extremely dangerous, obviously.
    - mc32 10y ago
      Someone insecure who does not retaliate is of little concern. Someone who can retaliate or do away with people in remote places using extreme methods is more about saying, "don't cross me or I will get you" and insecurity is kind of irrelevant at that point. It's more I don't want to get on this woman/man's bad side. I'm also not sure it's plain insecurity. I'm sure there are people not too far removed from him who if they could, would try to get to him -however, he goes to extreme measures to ensure he neutralizes possible threats when identified --including relatives and "old hands". Although, being such a tyrant (insecure as he might be) why doesn't anyone of the people at his core who live in fear for themselves and everyone else just go on a final mission against him? It's not like he's the only one armed --plus he'd have to remain awake 24x7.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        It's probably a rare person who is sane, intelligent, capable of detailed planning, and willing to potentially have a really nasty and protracted death. It seems to me that far more often you have people who are deluded in some way and don't perceive risk (bad planners, may not be particularly mentally fit), rare cases of extremely violent mental illness (not sane, bad planners), the highly motivated fanatic (good planner, sane, tends not to be the most intelligent). You need a lot of elements to come together to murder someone who is well protected and expects to be the target of violence, while having a state to protect them. The scary thing is that of course, sometimes, this does happen; when it does there is very very little that can be done to stop it, short of you aforementioned 24x7 sleeping cycle.
ransom1538 10y ago
WHY? Why kill people exotically? Why not just use a simple garrote with a thin wire? 10 seconds done, the head would be practically off. I am sure you could get a weird pair of head phones past security. If you poison someone with polonium/exotic nerve agent doesn't it narrow down the suspect pool? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Why do you go so far out of your way to kill someone publically, notoriously, in the first place? Simply having them die is something a state could reasonably accomplish without the publicity, or at least attempt to avoid publicity. When you use a means of assassination which could only have been provided by a state actor... you're sending a message. Nobody ever has to admit that Russia was involved with Litvinenko... the DPRK never has to admit their role with Jon-Nam... the means used speaks for them. That is the point It's thug 101.
- NamTaf 10y ago
  Because slicing someone's head off requires you to be there, next to them, as it happens. You're standing next to the body as it gargles and bleeds everywhere and security will descend on you in a big way. Wiping someone's face then bailing is something that the target will shrug off as 'some crazy' until some time later it kills them. This buys you time to get out of the place before anyone realises the full extent of what happened. Hence why they're back in Pyongyang, out of the reach of any law enforcement. Pyongyang doesn't really care if the world knows it's them or not. I bet they care much more if they lose their highly trained assassins, though.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Why do something that's so obvious though? Bump into someone instead and you can accomplish the same thing without a big stunt.
    - rangibaby 10y ago
knieveltech 10y ago
This is easily the most terrifying comment I've ever seen on Hacker News. You are a deeply scary human being. May I ask how do you know all of this? Edit: weird, I typically know ahead of time what's going to get downvoted. Didn't see it coming this time around. shrug
- tlow 10y ago
  Find my email in my profile. You may email me and I will respond.
- franciskim 10y ago
  Look at the number of Wikipedia links, it's not like tlow is the only person on earth that knows about this.
  - tlow 10y ago
    Thank you. I am merely a curious character who happens to read; occasionally on esoteric matters.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      I'm glad to discover that I'm not alone in that, "Hmmm, I wonder if my internet history has put me on all of the lists yet?" reading pattern. On Wikipedia especially, the fun is opening an endlessly nesting series of related topics. Sometimes that can get... weird.
      - psandersen 10y ago
        Same here, it is unfortunate that we have to be worried about appearing on lists just for having a curious mind.
      - sandworm101 10y ago
        Researching chemcal weapons on wikipedia wont get you on any list. Asking people where you can buy the needed stuff, THAT is list worthy. Anything on wikipedia was put there by someone. That someone is far more suspect than the readers. Material that is actually dangerous is quickly edited away. Unless you live somewhere properly dangerous or are already on a list. Such people should probably stay away from the internets all together as almost anything found online can be made to sound evil.
Element_ 10y ago
Some other famous chemical assassination attempts: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/a-look-at-assassination-attempts-involving-chemicals-1.3288236 http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/a-look-at-assassination-attempts...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kchoudhu 10y ago
Is the chemistry of VX well enough known that countries without access to it can recognize it when they see it?
- sgift 10y ago
  It is. See the various Wikipedia links given here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13720517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13720517 - it also contains the chemical structure. That's actually one of the things which makes chemical weapons far more dangerous than nuclear weapons - it is comparatively easy to produce them without much specialized equipment.
  - kchoudhu 10y ago
    Well, that's terrifying.
seesomesense 10y ago
As a side note, in some poor, largely rural countries, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors in insecticides are the most popular suicide agents.
aedron 10y ago
Does this remind anyone else of The Interview?
amelius 10y ago
How did they find the agent? Do they have a list of thousands of agents to test against, and do they work down the list one by one? How does this work?
- aladoc99 10y ago
  My guess is gas chromatography mass spectrometry, which yields a characteristic signature for many compounds.
gerjomarty 10y ago
It's not available right now, but I recommend a BBC doc "Inside Porton Down: Britain's Secret Weapons Research Facility"[0], in which they showed nerve agents like this being created. [0]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07hx40t http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07hx40t
andlier 10y ago
There is a fascinating BBC-documentary about chemical warfare history and the british Porton Down military research facility, hosted by Michael Mosley [0]. There is a part where the researcher actually makes sarin and VX right in front of Michael in a fume-hood. They literally watch the VX-liquid condense out of the vacuum distillation apparatus right in front of Mosley and the camera team. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07hx40t http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07hx40t Edit: Program available here until mid March: https://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID23002916/mosley-og-de-kjemiske-vaapnene https://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID23002916/mosley-og-de-kjemiske... If you can VPN to Norway.
- teh_klev 10y ago
  I saw that recently and can certainly recommend viewing it.
- benages 10y ago
  You can also download the program with youtube-dl without a VPN.
  - pritambaral 10y ago
    Checked out how youtube-dl does it. Remarkably, nrk.no is satisfied with a faked X-Forwarded-For header.
mtw 10y ago
Doesn't North Korea has ICBM missiles capable of reaching Italy or Washington DC? A missile full of VX agent is scary to me. The most North KOrea can fit on a missile is a warhead as powerful as Hiroshima's but a missile full of VX could potentially kill everyone in Washington DC Plus think of all the implications of transporting VX through international borders. Did China accept having North Korean agents transporting VX in China? Did they smuggle it through fish boats?
- coldcode 10y ago
  Not yet. Also given the unreliability of their missiles I doubt they could hit the ocean with any reasonable chance.
- overcast 10y ago
  North Korea launching a weapon of mass destruction on anyone on this planet, would ensure North Korea ceases to exist. They are just nonsense posturing, and empty threats. In the end we say yes, yes, grand wizard of NK, you are the best. Then we give them some money, and wait for their next silly display.
  - baybal2 10y ago
    >North Korea launching a weapon of mass destruction on anyone on this planet This will mean that China has ordered them to do that. It will not happen in any other way.
- arprocter 10y ago
  >Doesn't North Korea has ICBM missiles capable of reaching Italy or Washington DC? No[0]. The missile Iran recently tested was thought to be a Musudan[1] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Operational_delivery_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas... [1]https://warisboring.com/was-irans-new-missile-born-in-north-korea-8ae19827885d#.24rrzxs0w https://warisboring.com/was-irans-new-missile-born-in-north-...
- smacktoward 10y ago
  > Doesn't North Korea has ICBM missiles capable of reaching Italy or Washington DC? Not quite. The longest-range operational missiles they have are intermediate-range only, capable at best of reaching targets in Guam and Siberia. They've test-launched a few longer-ranged missiles as technology demonstrators, but even the best of these (the Taepodong-2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taepodong-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taepodong-2) only had enough range to reach India or Alaska.
throwaway_dbch 10y ago
so quick to assume this was done by nk.

329 points by matt4077 10y ago

anigbrowl 10y ago

I disapprove of assassination but I've got to admit this one scores 10/10 for sheer style.

matt4077 10y ago
Certainly the attempt to kill Castro, of all people, with an exploding cigar should rank higher. Just imagine how that CIA brain storming went: A: "We're tasked with killing Castro. Again. Any ideas? Anything? Nothing is stupid! Castro! Go! B: "Cigars" C: "Boom!" A: "I see we're in mind-melt here. No wonder the western world trusts us with their lives during these troubling times" If you insist on actually successful assassinations, and score it on cruelty as well, using Polonium should win. The victim doesn't only die a miserable death. It takes two weeks during which they can still give interviews, know they're going to die, and even knows exactly who did it.
- amyjess 10y ago
  And for sheer elegance, I'll give it to the assassination of Georgi Markov by being poked with a ricin-tipped umbrella.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    He was dead the very instant that ball was shot into him... he could have realized what had happened that instant and no one could have saved him; it really was diabolical.
    - Gustomaximus 10y ago
      Are you dead? If you got a knife and cut out that section of skin/muscle fairly quickly is it too late? But it's terrifying. Also that video of the CIA people testifying about the heart attack drug. I find the 'we dont know' if it was natural vs assassination scarier as nefarious people are more able and probably willing to use it. When you see all the type of things the CIA was up to 50/60/70's there must be some crazy stuff we'll never know about.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        I honestly don't know about how quickly you'd have to cut out the affected region, or even amputate the limb. My guess is that if you were very lucky and it missed all major blood vessels, you'd have seconds to act decisively. Maybe. As to the rest, yeah definitely. Just consider the B2 bomber. I always wonder what's hidden away being tested in the same way that was.
- MichaelMoser123 10y ago
  I think it's a myth. He didn't need to import any cigars to Cuba and if they could get as close as slipping cigars into his supply they could have killed him anyway.
- groby_b 10y ago
  Given that they tried pretty much anything... There were 600+ attempts on Castro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/638_Ways_to_Kill_Castro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/638_Ways_to_Kill_Castro Granted, that's a figure from Cuban counterintelligence, so maybe slightly too high ;) But most of them are documented. And not only 'weird' ideas like exploding cigars - the last one, in 2000, involved 90kg of explosives: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38121583 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-38121583
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    The method seemed to be specifically selected to implicate only one person, without any direct evidence that could prove that he ordered it. It's already bad enough to execute political rivals in your own territory, but when you go and do a public "message" assassination in another country, people might start to think you may be too dangerous to be a head of state--even those in your nominally allied states. The best that can be said about it is that at least it was a plan that actually worked. The infamous "Operation Mongoose" attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, including the exploding cigars, seem more like episodes of a reality show about trying to assassinate Castro than actual murder plots. In this episode, Felix Leiter puts tuberculosis in Castro's scuba wetsuit. In this episode, Jack Ryan convinces Castro's ex-girlfriend Marita to poison him. In this episode, Tamara Knight tries to shave off Castro's beard and draw a dickbutt on his forehead. In this episode, Sam Fisher puts a gigantic snap trap on Castro's palace patio, and baits it with a can of New Coke. In this episode, Sterling Archer steals Castro's "World's Best Dictator" coffee mug, and replaces it with a poisoned red Solo cup. In this episode, Maxwell Smart removes the non-slip strips from the bottom of Castro's bathtub and gives him a basket of scented bath oil beads. In contrast, North Korea's plan is "wipe military-grade nerve agent all over his face." Maybe setting it up to look like an episode of a prank-based reality show was an attempt to frame the CIA?
    - groby_b 10y ago
      600+ attempts to frame the CIA? Some involving large amounts of explosives, and snipers? That's what I call dedication!
- doubleplusgood 10y ago
  Israel assassinated The Engineer via exploding cellphone.
gozur88 10y ago
What is it with these tinpot strongmen? Polonium, mortars, nerve gas... in my day when you wanted someone dead you just shot him.
- wbl 10y ago
  Do you know about Georgi Markov? Bulgaria concerned about the propaganda fallout if they killed him and it was known, so they injected him with ricin instead. Mossad attempted to use poison to assassinate the head of Hezbollah. It went comically wrong, with his driver chasing down the assassins with a rolled-up newspaper.
  - Lordarminius 10y ago
    > Mossad attempted to use poison to assassinate the head of Hezbollah. It went comically wrong, with his driver chasing down the assassins with a rolled-up newspaper. Mossad successfully poisoned the head of Hezbollah by spraying a delayed action toxin into his ear. His driver (who did not comprehend what had happened, and whom he was dealing with) chased after the assassins who in turn fled fearing he was a bodyguard. Nazrallah was for certain a dead man and was only saved by the personal intervention of the the Jordanian king who ordered the Israeli ambassador to provide an antidote or deal with the consequences of a hostile Jordanian state. The Sheik was administered the antidote on his hospital bed and survived. There was nothing to laugh about.
    - owenversteeg 10y ago
      I believe you've conflated two assassination attempts, one on Hassan Nasrallah, one on Khaled Mashal. Mashal was the one in 1997 where the antidote was turned over by the Israeli government. Nasrallah was in 2008, and also survived after being treated by Iranian doctors.
      - Lordarminius 10y ago
        > I believe you've conflated two assassination attempts .... You are right. My mistake.

gwern 10y ago

Does VX explain how the two women survived despite using bare hands to administer an apparently skin-absorbable poison? It has binary agent formulations, so each women could have one half on her hand and avoid any contamination by swiping very fast.

sparky_z 10y ago
Do we know they were bare-handed?
- philip1209 10y ago
  Seems to have been a spray bottle of some kind? > Family members and Indonesian officials have said they believe she was tricked into thinking that the attack on Mr. Kim was part of a comedy video, involving spraying liquid on unwitting victims in public. The Malaysian authorities have said that both women were aware that the liquid was toxic.
  - ericdykstra 10y ago
    Tricking two people into using binary chemical weapons to kill someone under the guise of it being a prank sounds like something out of Hitman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitman_(series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitman_(series)). I find it highly unlikely this kind of high-profile assassination would be left up to unwitting amateurs to carry out, though.
    - rangibaby 10y ago
      > I find it highly unlikely this kind of high-profile assassination would be left up to unwitting amateurs to carry out, though. I would have agreed, but the LOL shirt? Whoever set this up (DPRK or not) has a very dark sense of humor.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]

ultrahate 10y ago

Would you have celebrated the assassination of Hitler if one had been performed? I know that's a stretching comparison, but it's not too far off. Dude was garbage, deserved EXACTLY what he got. Hell, NK even runs concentration camps, so it's really not even that wild of a comparison.

sb057 10y ago
But this guy was an enemy of North Korea. That's why he was assassinated...
- ultrahate 10y ago
  He was Un's half brother. First line of the article.
  - caf 10y ago
    Yeah, and has been living in exile since before Kim Jong-Il died.
vpribish 10y ago
This dude seems to have been more of a lazy dissident than part of the regime. username checks out in any case.
anigbrowl 10y ago
A totally legit question. Yes I would have approved but there you had a state of open war. Short of that unhappy circumstance, assassination is usually either a tool of oppression or an act of war, neither of which are things I'd want to perpetuate. Once hostilities have been declared then the ethical calculus changes significantly.
dang 10y ago
We've banned this account for trolling. Please don't create accounts to break the HN guidelines with. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13720426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13720426 and marked it off-topic.

tlow 10y ago

If we are talking about V-Series Agents, we might as well talk about the secret Soviet Program to develop additional V-series compounds[1] that would be undetectable by the west. It is important to note that there are many vectors of entry for a V-series agent, and in this case, evidence points to an atomized version, as opposed to the dermal administration which is more common among this class. An atomized version targeting the respiratory system and not the dermal would explain why two women attempting to aid "with bare hands" would not have been harmed. Beyond VX, there exist a plethora of other analogous chemicals, namely the G-Series[2], VE[3], VG[4], VM[5], VR[6] and VP[7]. A notable commonality among these compounds is that very little is known about their effects outside of military research (ie not shared). Given the military nature of these compounds, there is a reason to believe that this was a military assassination. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent [2] Sarin is a G-series agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VE_(nerve_agent) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VE_(nerve_agent) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VG_(nerve_agent) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VG_(nerve_agent) [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(nerve_agent) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(nerve_agent) [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VR_(nerve_agent) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VR_(nerve_agent) [7] https://books.google.com/books?id=DQw2hVGe0aMC&lpg=PA72&ots=eYb1G3m7Cl&dq=%2B%22vp%20nerve%22&pg=PA72#v=onepage&q=+%22vp%20nerve%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=DQw2hVGe0aMC&lpg=PA72&ots=...

frankydp 10y ago
It is worth mentioning that a powder form of nerve agents was also created during the time that these things were the fad. Mirzayanov covered the functionality of these binary powder based chems with 5-7x efficacy over VX. It would be highly unlikely for NK have functional quantities of these though. Edit: Also it would be possible to use a non-military Acetylcholinesterase inhibitor for this attack.
- tlow 10y ago
  In reply to "Edit": Oh? Really? And might you have a compound in mind? Seriously. Do you have inside information on a novel Nerve Agent that has not been studied for military use but is effective?

sasas 10y ago

Interesting tid-bit from Wikipedia [1] In fiscal year 2008, the US Department of Defense released a study finding that the U.S. had dumped at least 124 tons of VX into the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of New York/New Jersey and Florida, between 1969 and 1970. This material consisted of nearly 22,000 M55 rockets, 19 bulk containers holding 1,400 pounds (640 kg) each, and one M23 chemical landmine. [25] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)#US_VX_stockpile_elimination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)#US_VX_stockpi...

tlow 10y ago
Yep. And who knows what the affects of that were. But I do not agree with the claim that this is interesting in this context as it seems irrelevant to the discussion.
- jdoliner 10y ago
  The article seems to suggest that became common practice in 1990, before when the parent is talking about. I'm not sure how you can claim it's inaccurate and that the parent should RTFA, it's a verbatim quote from the article isn't it?
  - tlow 10y ago
    I'm merely suggesting that the comment claims to be interesting and related but because it is not directly related to the subject it seems off-topic and irrelevant.
    - ehnto 10y ago
      Nor did he suggest it was. He said it was an interesting tid bit from the article. It was indeed an interesting tid bit. I also found your comment about newer practices interesting, and neither comment rebuts the other.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]

sndean 10y ago

I wonder if they used this binary combination: O-Ethyl O-2-diisopropylaminoethyl methylphosphonite and sulfur [0][1]. Not sure if that would be consistent with one being in a spray bottle. [0] http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/831901-overview http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/831901-overview [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QL_(chemical) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QL_(chemical)

tlow 10y ago
It will likely never be known what compound, but the "spray bottle" tells us that the agent was targeting respiratory system, not dermal. However the use of V-Series agent is a strong indicator of military assassination as almost all research on these chemicals is confined to secret military research. The Russians have admitted to the synthesis of more than 100 more novel V-series nerve agents.[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent While I'm not convinced a binary compound was needed in this case, it is an interesting theory!
- aladoc99 10y ago
  "the "spray bottle" tells us that the agent was targeting respiratory system, not dermal. " I'm not sure this follows. If the cloth was impregnated with one of the binary components and the other was sprayed on the cloth, then VX would be synthesized right there in contact with the skin. I don't know that you could be sure a lethal dose would be inhaled in one or two seconds.
  - jabl 10y ago
    I imagine NK is the sort of regime that doesn't have moral qualms about testing this on, say, political prisoners, before using it in an actual assassination attempt.

jbenz 10y ago

The Rock came out when I was 13 so needless to say, I'm a big fan. I absolutely thought VX Nerve Agent was fictional until today.

M_Grey 10y ago
To be fair, the form as it existed in that movie sort of was... although not by much.
hkmurakami 10y ago
I'm in exactly the same boat as you and thought VX was fictional until about 10 years later when a mainstream media article made a reference to it.
flukus 10y ago
Not VX, but don't you remember this as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack
- mattnumbe 10y ago
  I actually ended up in the same article because VX is related to オウム真理教(Aum Shinrikyo), the group that was responsible for the gas attacks in Tokyo. They were also manufacturing VX and are the only ones on record to have used it to commit a murder, until now I guess... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo

L_226 10y ago

I had thought it was going to be a fentanyl or carfentanyl aerosol spray, I suppose that might have rendered him incoherent sooner though. The use of VX seems like bragging really (as if the act wasn't already adolescent enough).

M_Grey 10y ago
Oh yeah... like using Polonium to kill Litvinenko... this is all about sending a message.
- L_226 10y ago
  Indeed, and the message was "I'm insecure about my position".
  - chongli 10y ago
    Emotionally insecure, sure, but extremely dangerous, obviously.
  - mc32 10y ago
    Someone insecure who does not retaliate is of little concern. Someone who can retaliate or do away with people in remote places using extreme methods is more about saying, "don't cross me or I will get you" and insecurity is kind of irrelevant at that point. It's more I don't want to get on this woman/man's bad side. I'm also not sure it's plain insecurity. I'm sure there are people not too far removed from him who if they could, would try to get to him -however, he goes to extreme measures to ensure he neutralizes possible threats when identified --including relatives and "old hands". Although, being such a tyrant (insecure as he might be) why doesn't anyone of the people at his core who live in fear for themselves and everyone else just go on a final mission against him? It's not like he's the only one armed --plus he'd have to remain awake 24x7.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      It's probably a rare person who is sane, intelligent, capable of detailed planning, and willing to potentially have a really nasty and protracted death. It seems to me that far more often you have people who are deluded in some way and don't perceive risk (bad planners, may not be particularly mentally fit), rare cases of extremely violent mental illness (not sane, bad planners), the highly motivated fanatic (good planner, sane, tends not to be the most intelligent). You need a lot of elements to come together to murder someone who is well protected and expects to be the target of violence, while having a state to protect them. The scary thing is that of course, sometimes, this does happen; when it does there is very very little that can be done to stop it, short of you aforementioned 24x7 sleeping cycle.

ransom1538 10y ago

WHY? Why kill people exotically? Why not just use a simple garrote with a thin wire? 10 seconds done, the head would be practically off. I am sure you could get a weird pair of head phones past security. If you poison someone with polonium/exotic nerve agent doesn't it narrow down the suspect pool? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...

M_Grey 10y ago
Why do you go so far out of your way to kill someone publically, notoriously, in the first place? Simply having them die is something a state could reasonably accomplish without the publicity, or at least attempt to avoid publicity. When you use a means of assassination which could only have been provided by a state actor... you're sending a message. Nobody ever has to admit that Russia was involved with Litvinenko... the DPRK never has to admit their role with Jon-Nam... the means used speaks for them. That is the point It's thug 101.
NamTaf 10y ago
Because slicing someone's head off requires you to be there, next to them, as it happens. You're standing next to the body as it gargles and bleeds everywhere and security will descend on you in a big way. Wiping someone's face then bailing is something that the target will shrug off as 'some crazy' until some time later it kills them. This buys you time to get out of the place before anyone realises the full extent of what happened. Hence why they're back in Pyongyang, out of the reach of any law enforcement. Pyongyang doesn't really care if the world knows it's them or not. I bet they care much more if they lose their highly trained assassins, though.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Why do something that's so obvious though? Bump into someone instead and you can accomplish the same thing without a big stunt.
  - rangibaby 10y ago

knieveltech 10y ago

This is easily the most terrifying comment I've ever seen on Hacker News. You are a deeply scary human being. May I ask how do you know all of this? Edit: weird, I typically know ahead of time what's going to get downvoted. Didn't see it coming this time around. shrug

tlow 10y ago
Find my email in my profile. You may email me and I will respond.
franciskim 10y ago
Look at the number of Wikipedia links, it's not like tlow is the only person on earth that knows about this.
- tlow 10y ago
  Thank you. I am merely a curious character who happens to read; occasionally on esoteric matters.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    I'm glad to discover that I'm not alone in that, "Hmmm, I wonder if my internet history has put me on all of the lists yet?" reading pattern. On Wikipedia especially, the fun is opening an endlessly nesting series of related topics. Sometimes that can get... weird.
    - psandersen 10y ago
      Same here, it is unfortunate that we have to be worried about appearing on lists just for having a curious mind.
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      Researching chemcal weapons on wikipedia wont get you on any list. Asking people where you can buy the needed stuff, THAT is list worthy. Anything on wikipedia was put there by someone. That someone is far more suspect than the readers. Material that is actually dangerous is quickly edited away. Unless you live somewhere properly dangerous or are already on a list. Such people should probably stay away from the internets all together as almost anything found online can be made to sound evil.

Element_ 10y ago

Some other famous chemical assassination attempts: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/a-look-at-assassination-attempts-involving-chemicals-1.3288236 http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/a-look-at-assassination-attempts...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kchoudhu 10y ago

Is the chemistry of VX well enough known that countries without access to it can recognize it when they see it?

sgift 10y ago
It is. See the various Wikipedia links given here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13720517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13720517 - it also contains the chemical structure. That's actually one of the things which makes chemical weapons far more dangerous than nuclear weapons - it is comparatively easy to produce them without much specialized equipment.
- kchoudhu 10y ago
  Well, that's terrifying.

seesomesense 10y ago

As a side note, in some poor, largely rural countries, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors in insecticides are the most popular suicide agents.

aedron 10y ago

Does this remind anyone else of The Interview?

amelius 10y ago

How did they find the agent? Do they have a list of thousands of agents to test against, and do they work down the list one by one? How does this work?

aladoc99 10y ago
My guess is gas chromatography mass spectrometry, which yields a characteristic signature for many compounds.

gerjomarty 10y ago

It's not available right now, but I recommend a BBC doc "Inside Porton Down: Britain's Secret Weapons Research Facility"[0], in which they showed nerve agents like this being created. [0]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07hx40t http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07hx40t

andlier 10y ago

There is a fascinating BBC-documentary about chemical warfare history and the british Porton Down military research facility, hosted by Michael Mosley [0]. There is a part where the researcher actually makes sarin and VX right in front of Michael in a fume-hood. They literally watch the VX-liquid condense out of the vacuum distillation apparatus right in front of Mosley and the camera team. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07hx40t http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07hx40t Edit: Program available here until mid March: https://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID23002916/mosley-og-de-kjemiske-vaapnene https://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID23002916/mosley-og-de-kjemiske... If you can VPN to Norway.

teh_klev 10y ago
I saw that recently and can certainly recommend viewing it.
benages 10y ago
You can also download the program with youtube-dl without a VPN.
- pritambaral 10y ago
  Checked out how youtube-dl does it. Remarkably, nrk.no is satisfied with a faked X-Forwarded-For header.

mtw 10y ago

Doesn't North Korea has ICBM missiles capable of reaching Italy or Washington DC? A missile full of VX agent is scary to me. The most North KOrea can fit on a missile is a warhead as powerful as Hiroshima's but a missile full of VX could potentially kill everyone in Washington DC Plus think of all the implications of transporting VX through international borders. Did China accept having North Korean agents transporting VX in China? Did they smuggle it through fish boats?

coldcode 10y ago
Not yet. Also given the unreliability of their missiles I doubt they could hit the ocean with any reasonable chance.
overcast 10y ago
North Korea launching a weapon of mass destruction on anyone on this planet, would ensure North Korea ceases to exist. They are just nonsense posturing, and empty threats. In the end we say yes, yes, grand wizard of NK, you are the best. Then we give them some money, and wait for their next silly display.
- baybal2 10y ago
  >North Korea launching a weapon of mass destruction on anyone on this planet This will mean that China has ordered them to do that. It will not happen in any other way.
arprocter 10y ago
>Doesn't North Korea has ICBM missiles capable of reaching Italy or Washington DC? No[0]. The missile Iran recently tested was thought to be a Musudan[1] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Operational_delivery_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas... [1]https://warisboring.com/was-irans-new-missile-born-in-north-korea-8ae19827885d#.24rrzxs0w https://warisboring.com/was-irans-new-missile-born-in-north-...
smacktoward 10y ago
> Doesn't North Korea has ICBM missiles capable of reaching Italy or Washington DC? Not quite. The longest-range operational missiles they have are intermediate-range only, capable at best of reaching targets in Guam and Siberia. They've test-launched a few longer-ranged missiles as technology demonstrators, but even the best of these (the Taepodong-2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taepodong-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taepodong-2) only had enough range to reach India or Alaska.

throwaway_dbch 10y ago

so quick to assume this was done by nk.