朝鲜威胁将对美国发动报复袭击

North Korea has warned of strikes against key sites in the US in retaliation for Washington blaming Pyongyang for the recent Sony cyber attack, saying any US punishment over the incident would lead to damage “thousands of times greater”.

Late on Sunday North Korea’s National Defence Commission said President Barack Obama was “recklessly” spreading rumours that Pyongyang was behind the cyber attack. The film studio has pulled The Interview , a satirical movie depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, after the hacking and subsequent threats of terrorist attacks against cinemas that screened it.

The NDC said its 1.2m-member army was ready to use all types of warfare against the US. “Our toughest counteraction will be boldly taken against the White House, the Pentagon, and the whole US mainland, the cesspool of terrorism, by far surpassing the ‘symmetric counteraction’ declared by Obama,” said the NDC statement, carried by official news agency KCNA.

Pyongyang has routinely made similar threats against South Korea and the US during times of confrontation but the latest hostile rhetoric against Washington underlines Pyongyang’s anger over the movie.
The threat comes as US officials are scrambling to come up with ways to retaliate after the FBI announced on Friday that it believed North Korea was behind the cyber attack against Sony, and warned that it would impose “costs and consequences” on those responsible.

Huge amounts of Sony Pictures data were accessed and then destroyed in last month’s hack. Employee pay details, health records, social security numbers and other personal data were then dumped online. The hackers, who call themselves Guardians of Peace, also released Sony executives’ private emails to the media.

Mr Obama has said he is considering imposing new sanctions on North Korea, including putting Pyongyang back on its list of state sponsors of terrorism, six years after it was removed from the list.

Pyongyang has denied its involvement and proposed a joint investigation into the cyber attack, but it promised in June to “mercilessly destroy” anyone associated with The Interview.

Experts believe North Korea has the capacity to hack any organisation in the world, with South Korea’s former defence minister Kim Kwan-jin saying last year that the communist country operates an elite unit of 3,000 cyber experts.

Seoul has accused Pyongyang of numerous cyber attacks over the past five years. It is now investigating the online leak of data related to its nuclear reactors after a recent attack on the country’s nuclear plant operator’s computer systems.

翻译仅供参考

朝鲜警告说，为报复美国政府将索尼(Sony)最近所受网络袭击归咎朝鲜政府的行为，朝鲜将对美国重要目标发动袭击。并表示，美国围绕该事件的任何惩罚措施，都将招致“成千上万倍的”损失。

周日晚些时候，朝鲜国防委员会(National Defence Commission)表示，美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)“十分鲁莽地”传播了朝鲜政府是这次网络袭击幕后主使的谣言。在遭遇网络袭击和针对电影《刺杀金正恩》(The Interview)播出影院的恐袭威胁后，索尼的工作室已经停止了该电影的发行。

朝鲜国防委员会表示，其120万军队已准备好动用各种武器对付美国。这份声明由官方朝鲜中央通讯社(KCNA)发布。在该声明中，朝鲜国防委员会表示：“我们将对白宫(White House)、五角大楼(Pentagon)、以及作为恐怖主义泥潭的整个美国本土，大胆发动最残酷的反击。这种反击的力度将远远超过奥巴马宣称的‘系统性反击’。”

在与韩国和美国对峙期间，朝鲜政府会经常发出针对两者的类似威胁。不过，朝鲜最近对美国政府的这一敌意言论，凸显出朝鲜政府对《刺杀金正恩》的愤怒情绪。

在朝鲜发出这一威胁之际，美国官员正在考虑对朝鲜反击的方式。此前，美国联邦调查局(FBI)曾在周五宣称，该机构相信朝鲜是索尼所受网络袭击的幕后主使，并警告说它将让责任人“付出相应代价并承担相应后果”。

奥巴马曾表示，他正在考虑向朝鲜施加新的制裁措施，其中包括将朝鲜再次列入支持恐怖主义的国家名单。6年前，美国曾将朝鲜从该名单上移除。

朝鲜政府否认曾参与这次网络袭击，并提议开展对该网络袭击的联合调查。不过，今年6月，朝鲜曾发誓要“无情毁灭”任何与《刺杀金正恩》有关的人。

此外，由于朝鲜涉嫌通过中国网络发起对索尼的袭击，美国官员还曾与中国接触，请中方帮忙封堵源自朝鲜的网络攻击。不过，中国并未回应美国对朝鲜采取措施的呼吁，而只是表示中国反对任何形式的网络攻击。

中国外交部周一在一份声明中表示：“中国反对任何一个国家以及任何人使用其他国家的系统对第三方国家进行网络攻击。”