Hours after President Donald Trump said he’d respond to more North Korean threats on the US with “fire and fury” unlike the world had ever seen, North Korea responded with a threat: saying it was considering a missile strike on Guam.
“He has been very threatening beyond a normal state,” Trump said of Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s leader, looking straight into the assembled cameras. “As I said they will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
Just more than two hours later, North Korea’s military released a statement mentioning that it would consider striking Guam, an island in the Pacific home to a massive Air Force base and US nuclear strategic assets, with Hwasong-12s, intermediate-range missiles first tested in May.
North Korea said at the time the missile could carry a heavy nuclear warhead, and independent analysis seems to fit with that statement.
North Korea specifically mentioned the US’s nuclear-capable bombers in Guam, saying they “get on the nerves of DPRK and threaten and blackmail it through their frequent visits to the sky above Korea.” Usually in response to North Korean missile tests, the US will fly these bombers above the Korean peninsula.
CNN’s Jim Sciutto reported that the US flew two B1-B bombers over the Korean Peninsula out of Anderson AFB in Guam, part of “continuous bomber presence.”
But the US maintains a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense missile interceptor in Guam specifically made to protect from medium-range missiles. THAAD has performed well in test conditions but never intercepted a shot fired in hostility.
After the UN Security Council, which includes the US, voted unanimously in favor of heavy sanctions on North Korea over the weekend, Pyongyang responded that it would teach the US a “severe lesson” that exacted a “thousand-fold” revenge on the US.
As reported by Business Insider