Pyongyang: North Korea just threatened to destroy the United States, South Korea, and Japan escalating tensions during an already dangerous time. It says it wants to turn US to “ashes,” “sink” Japanese islands, and “wipe out” South Korea.
“Let’s reduce the US mainland into ashes and darkness,” said a spokesperson for the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, which oversees North Korea’s foreign affairs and propaganda, as reported by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
“US should be beaten to death as a stick is fit for a rabid dog,” he added.
“The four islands of the [Japanese] archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche.Japan is no longer needed to exist near us,” the spokesperson continued.
“The group of pro-American traitors should be severely punished and wiped out with fire attack so that they could no longer survive,” the spokesperson didn’t spare South Korea either.
On August 29, North Korea launched a missile over Japan’s Northern island of Hokkaido, landing 733 miles to the East. Five days later, North Korea tested its most powerful nuclear bomb yet, which was at least seven times more powerful than the one America dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
In response to the test, the United Nations on September 11 passed its harshest sanctions package it’s ever adopted against North Korea, which includes banning textiles exports and capping shipments of crude oil into the country. And on September 12, South Korea conducted a military exercise to improve its ability to fire cruise missiles at North Korea.
South Korea and the United States have yet to respond directly to North Korea’s latest threat. But on September 12, two days before Pyongyang’s statements, President Donald Trump noted the US may take more actions beyond the recently imposed sanctions. “Those sanctions are nothing compared to what ultimately will have to happen,” the president remarked alongside Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.
“If the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a preemptive nuclear strike,” said North Korea in March 2016.
“Pyongyang can tip new-type intercontinental ballistic rockets with more powerful nuclear warheads and keep any cesspool of evils in the earth, including the US mainland, within our striking range,” North Korea leader Kim Jong Un said earlier.
Those comments were mostly shrugged off by the United States because North Korea didn’t have a missile that could hit the US mainland. But now it likely can. On July 28, North Korea tested one that could theoretically hit major US cities like Chicago, New York, or even Washington, DC. And US intelligence officials believe that North Korea will soon be able to reliably fit a nuclear warhead atop a missile.
Pyongyang is already pointing thousands of pieces of artillery at Seoul, South Korea’s capital — with a whopping 25.6 million residents living in the greater metropolitan area. One war game convened by the Atlantic back in 2005 predicted that a North Korean attack would kill 100,000 people in Seoul in the first few days alone.