No, really, I'm serious:

North Korea reportedly sold 10,000 automatic rifles to the Muslim separatist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Philippines’ largest armed militia, which is allegedly linked to the international terrorist group al-Qaida, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reported Monday.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), however, told The Korea Times it was not aware of the secret deal being struck between North Korea and the terrorist group in the Philippines.

``Even though we have classified information on the North’s attempts to sell its firearms to third countries, we are not aware of any deal being successfully made,’’ an NIS official said, asking not to be named.

The large-circulation newspaper in Japan quoted an intelligence agency in Southeast Asia as saying that Lim Kyu-do, a firearms dealer from the North, signed the $2 million contract with the MILF in the middle of 1999 to deliver those arms, including 10,000 M16 rifles, grenades and 200 guns of other kinds.

The MILF gave two $1-million checks to the North via a Malaysian agent on Sept. 25 in return for the Pyongyang regime’s delivery of the firearms in several shipments to Mindanao island, the stronghold of the terrorist group, by the end of 2000, the daily said.