Wars of Korea

 Donghak Peasant Revolution (1894)–This rebellion caused the Korean governement to request Chinese military intervention. This caused Japan and China to fight a war in Korea.

First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)–Japan defeated China. Many battles fought on Korean soil. The war resulted in Japan gaining increased influence in Korea.

Japanese Annexation of Korea (1910)–Though Japan retained effective control over Korea from 1905 on, the annexation was formalized in a 1910 treaty.

Anti-Japanese Resistance (1919-1945)–Many different groups and rebel forces resisted Japanese rule over Korea.

World War Two (1939-1945)–Many Koreans were drafted into Japanese forces during World War Two. The war ended with Japan defeated, and Japanese occupation of Korea ended.

Jeju Rebellion (1948-1949)–Communist rebellion on the South Korean island of Jeju

The Korean War (1950-1953)

While the the fighting of Korean War of 1950-1953 ended with an armistice nearly 60 years ago, North and South Korea are still technically at war. Their ongoing hostilities have resulted in many incidents of violence over the years, with two particular incidents in 2010 pushing the two Koreas (and their allies), close to the brink of war. Those incidents of violence between North and South Korea in 2010, were the recent attacks on a South Korean warship and the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong.  The  details on these two incidents, as well as the events of 2009 that led up to the current crisis and the Yeonpyeong Island naval battle of 2002 are at http://www.historyguy.com/korean_crisis_2010.htm

See also: http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm

Also, in August, 2010, an article was published by The Atlantic magazine which presents facts and opinions on the possibility of an Israeli strike at Iran. The Atlantic article concludes that there is a 50 percent likelihood that Israel will strike the Iranian nuclear program by July, 2011.

See also:  http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm

And the History Guy page at http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm

Two recent developments in particular shows that Israel is growing increasingly concerned.  First, the Israeli cabinet decided to fund a program to provide gas masks to all Israelis.  This is an obvious preparation for the possibility of missile attacks on Israel from Iran and/or Iranian allies Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria.

Second, on January 12, 2010, a leading Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated by a remote-controlled bomb in Tehran.  It is widely assumed that Israel is behind this killing in an apparent attempt to delay the Iranian nuclear program. 

See also: http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm

 From Wired

November 3, 2009

Agents of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service hacked into the computer of a senior Syrian government official a year before Israel bombed a facility in Syria in 2007, according to Der Spiegel.

The intelligence agents planted a Trojan horse on the official’s computer in late 2006 while he was staying at a hotel in the Kensington district of London, the German newspaper reported Monday in an extensive account of the bombing attack.

The official reportedly left his computer in his hotel room when he went out, making it easy for agents to install the malware that siphoned files from the laptop. The files contained construction plans for the Al Kabir complex in eastern Syria — said to be an illicit nuclear facility — as well as letters and hundreds of detailed photos showing the complex at various stages of construction.

At the beginning — probably in 2002, although the material was undated — the construction site looked like a treehouse on stilts, complete with suspicious-looking pipes leading to a pumping station at the Euphrates. Later photos show concrete piers and roofs, which apparently had only one function: to modify the building so that it would look unsuspicious from above. In the end, the whole thing looked as if a shoebox had been placed over something in an attempt to conceal it. But photos from the interior revealed that what was going on at the site was in fact probably work on fissile material.

Early in the morning of September 6, 2007, Israeli fighter jets bombed the complex, located in the desert near the Euphrates river about 80 miles from the Iraq border. The attack, dubbed “Operation Orchard,” seemed to come out of nowhere and was marked by a resounding silence from both Israel and the United States afterward.

Israel claimed the incident never occurred. The United States claimed ignorance, but a State Department official suggested the target was nuclear equipment obtained by “secret suppliers.”

The Syrians were said to have been building the reactor with help from North Korea. The Israeli military’s intelligence unit, known as 8200, was reportedly tipped off to this by the U.S. National Security Agency, which intercepted conversations between Syrian officials at the reactor and North Koreans.

Israel’s concern about the facility really kicked into gear when it discovered that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to Syria in 2006, according to der Spiegel. The paper alleges that Ahmadinejad promised the Syrians more than $1 billion to hasten their progress.

In early 2007, Iran’s former deputy Minister of Defense defected to Turkey and told the CIA that Iran was funding a top-secret nuclear facility in Syria in conjunction with North Korea. Days before the Israeli attack on Al Kabir, a ship from North Korea arrived in Syria loaded with uranium materials, according to the Mossad.

Israel’s attack on the facility commenced late in the evening of September 5, when 10 Israeli jets departed from a base in Northern Israel around 11 p.m. and headed west over the Mediterranean. Seven of them turned east to Syria, flying low, and took out a radar station with their missiles. About 20 minutes later they released their bombs on Al Kabir.

Afterward, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly sent a message to Syria through Turkey saying no further hostilities were planned.

Israel, Olmert said, did not want to play up the incident and was still interested in making peace with Damascus. He added that if Assad chose not to draw attention to the Israeli strike, he would do the same.

In this way, a deafening silence about the mysterious event in the desert began. Nevertheless, the story did not end there, because there were many who chose to shed light on the incident — and others who were intent on exacting revenge.

Syrian President Bashar Assad maintains that the facility was a conventional military installation. But Der Spiegel reports that in June 2008, a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency analyzed soil at Al Kabir taken after the bombing and found traces of uranium that were “of a type not included in Syria’s declared inventory of nuclear material.” Assad says the Israelis dropped the samples from the air when they bombed the facility in order to frame Syria.

See also:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8302841.stm

http://www.historyguy.com/korean_nuclear_crisis.htm

See http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm for more information and links.

http://www.historyguy.com/iranwarsbookstore.htm