Why U.S. Is Flying Surveillance Planes Over North Korea

There are increasing speculations about the health status of North Korean Strongman Kim Jong Un, and this has spurred reactions from both friends and foe.

This is the way Quartz put it: “It’s very hard to know what’s really going in North Korea. If reports this week are credible, supreme leader Kim Jong Un is in dire condition following surgery”

One alleged reaction is increased surveillance flights by the United States and the central motive is to find out whether the Korean leader is “brain dead,” “gravely ill,” or just recuperating from surgery at his family’s summer retreat in Wonsan.

North Korea is anti-west with its strong communist leanings and holds the U.S and its allies with strong suspicion.

Since Monday, the reports have been rife that Kim was struggling to recover from heart surgery conducted on April 12, and U.S. Air Force-conducted multiple flights over the Korean Peninsula every day is aimed sieving vital information.

The U.S. surveillance flights were first spotted by the aviation tracking Twitter account Aircraft Spots, which tracked the flights as they passed over Seoul.

According to one report, analysing the situation, “These flights are not unusual for the U.S. Air Force, but what is unusual is that the flights have been tracked”.

The report adds that there is also a likelihood that all are subtle pressure to coerce the North country into revealing the real status of the health of their leader.

Both countries, it will be recalled have been on loggerheads over missile tests with U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly saying Wednesday Washington was not in possession of vital information as to the true health status of Kim.

“These are reports that came out and we don’t know,” Trump was reported as saying, adding:. “I just have to say to Kim Jong Un, good luck. I’ve had a very good relationship with him. I can only say this, I wish him well.”

The reports that Kim had undergone surgery and was struggling to recover first emerged in a website run by North Korean defectors. U.S. media, citing U.S. intelligence sources then claimed Kim was “gravely ill” and “brain dead” — though they subsequently walked back much of that reporting.

Adapted from AFP