US officials fear North Korea building biological weapons amid signs of microbe production

US officials have warned that North Korea’s suspected biological weapons programme poses a growing threat amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Analysts believe that the pariah regime is moving steadily towards acquiring essential machinery that could potentially be used for advanced bioweapons, from factories that can produce microbes by the tonne, reported the Washington Post. Scientists are also gaining specialist knowledge abroad.

Although there is currently no evidence that dictator Kim Jong-un has ordered production of actual weapons, it is feared that US and South Korean ground troops would be targeted with biological agents in the event of war.  

“That the North Koreans have [biological] agents is known, by various means,” one senior US official told The Post on condition of anonymity.

“The lingering question is, why have they acquired the materials and developed the science, but not yet produced weapons?”

But he admitted that spy agencies might not know immediately if they did as new capabilities are embedded within civilian factories which the regime claims are making agricultural and pharmaceutical products.

“If it started tomorrow we might not know it,” the official said. “Unless we’re lucky enough to have an informant who happens to be in just the right place.”

US and South Korean intelligence agencies believe Pyongyang has experimented with bacterial strains including microbes that cause anthrax, cholera and plague. Analysts also suspect that North Korea has possessed the smallpox virus since the mid-1990s.

Although the immediate focus of the international community has been the pariah state’s nuclear programme, the threat of biological attack from the North is viewed as serious enough by the Pentagon to merit vaccinating Korea-bound troops for exposure to anthrax and smallpox.

Military planners conclude that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is choosing to hold back on bioweapons for now, but have reportedly made preparations for US and South Korean aircraft to quickly strike suspected chemical and biological facilities if war breaks out.