N Korea blames US for Internet outages

North Korea blames the United States for its recent large-scale Internet outages, calling President Barack Obama a “monkey.”

The accusation comes amid a confrontation with Washington over a crippling cyberattack on Sony Pictures, which the FBI pinned on Pyongyang.

On Saturday, the North’s powerful National Defense Commission, the country’s ruling body led by state leader Kim Jong-un, said Obama was responsible for the release of Sony’s “The Interview,” a comedy that depicts the fictional assassination of Kim.

“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” an unidentified spokesman at for the commission said in a statement carried by official KCNA news agency.

Pyongyang has resorted to crude insults against the US president and other top US officials before. Earlier this year, it called US Secretary of State John Kerry a “wolf.” In May, its official news agency said Obama had the “shape of a monkey.”

Sony originally cancelled the Christmas release of “The Interview” following threats of terrorist acts from hackers, but then put it out on limited release after Obama said the studio was surrendering to North Korea.

President Obama promised retaliation against Pyongyang, but did not specify what measures the US would take.

North Korea’s main Internet sites suffered disruptions this week, including a complete outage of nearly nine hours, following US accusations that it was involved in the Sony hack. The North has denied any involvement.

The United States and North Korea are technically in a state of war as the Korean War (1950-1953) ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.