North Korea Blames U.S. for Internet Outages, Calls Obama a ‘Monkey’

North Korea lashed out at the United States on Saturday, blaming the American government for widespread Internet outages reported in the country and hurling a racial slur at President Obama.

According to the Associated Press, the North Korean National Defense Commission, the country’s top government branch, accused President Obama of being responsible for the release of the Sony Pictures comedy The Interview, which the North Korean government had previously called “an act of war.”

“Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” an unidentified spokesman from the commission’s Policy Department reportedly told North Korean news agency KCNA.

The spokesman added that the United States, “a big country, started disturbing the Internet operation of major media of the DPRK, not knowing shame like children playing a tag,” the AP reported.

The accusations come in the wake of the Christmas Eve release of The Interview through several online outlets and about 330 theaters. The group responsible for the November 24 cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment had previously vowed “9-11 style” terror attacks against theaters that had agreed to screen the film.

The White House has not yet commented on the accusations.

The Interview took in just over $1 million in limited release on Christmas Day, plus as-yet-unreported revenue from Video on Demand streaming. The film has also been illegally downloaded at least 1.5 million times since it appeared on various file-sharing websites shortly after its release, reports TorrentFreak.