THE ARMAGEDDON PARADE
Dictator rolls out his ‘game changing’ new missile in a show of strength as sinister as it was surreal
NORTH KOREA unveiled a deadly new array of ‘game-changing’ missiles yesterday and threatened to annihilate the US armada of warships heading towards its coast – heightening fears of nuclear war.
As US military forces massed around the rogue state, Pyongyang staged a show of strength, parading long-range weaponry that it claims could reach the US mainland – realising Washington’s worst fears.
These include nuclear missiles that it is claimed could be launched from a submarine without being detected. They have a range of up to 1,000km.
Another is a longer range land-based nuclear missile that could strike targets over 11,000km away.
North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un’s righthand man raised the tension still further, vowing: ‘If the United States wages reckless provocation against us, our revolutionary power will instantly counter with an annihilating strike.’ Vice-marshal Choe Ryong Hae, who accused US president Donald Trump of ‘creating a war situation’ by sending the US Navy Strike Group, led by aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, added: ‘And we will respond to all-out war with allout
‘We will respond to all-out war with all-out war’
war, and to nuclear war with our style of nuclear strike warfare.’
A senior White House source said last night the highly choreographed military parade of hardware and goose-stepping troops in the North Korean capital Pyongyang was a cause for concern, and Mr Trump was being fully updated on what appeared to be new weapons systems.
The source added that while US intelligence does not believe North Korea yet possesses a missile capable of reaching the US, it is ‘in the works and could be perfected’.
Concern continues to mount that Kim Jong-un will test a nuclear bomb or stage a missile test to mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of the country’s first leader, Kim Il-sung. It is feared that this could trigger an American response leading to war.
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is leading a group of warships bristling with weaponry and aircraft towards the Korean Peninsula and was yesterday believed to be less than 500km away from the site where North Korea has already conducted five underground nuclear tests.
Nuclear-powered submarines equipped with devastating firepower including Tomahawk cruise missiles are also in the area, according to Mr Trump.
Bolstering those forces, US Air Force warplanes have gathered for an exercise at Kadena air base in Japan and US combat troops are stationed on South Korea’s border with the North in another exercise.
With the crisis mounting hour by hour, the world watched nervously yesterday as:
North Korea paraded two apparently new long-range inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in a massive display of military might as Kim Jong-un looked on;
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) were also on show for the first time, pointing to a technological leap forward that could potentially evade antimissile systems;
The Kremlin’s closest diplomat to Kim warned that a new missile test by the hermit state was now ‘highly probable’;
Mr Trump maintained an uncharacteristic silence on Twitter ahead of Vice President Mike Pence’s arrival in Seoul today on a scheduled visit to the region;
Japanese leaders discussed plans to evacuate its 57,000 nationals from South Korea;
A secret plan for North Korean special forces to kidnap or kill Western tourists in South Korea emerged.
Chad O’Carroll, managing director of website NK (North Korea) News, said the long-range missiles would be ‘a big game-changer once it is deployed in service’.
However, he added there would be a long testing schedule before a trial launch of the missile itself. Liquid-fuel missiles also ‘take hours to fuel up and if there is intelligence that they were doing that it would be quite easy to stop it before it was launched’.
A series of what appeared to be KN-08 missiles – an ICBM – were among the weapons rolled out on trucks. They could in theory deliver a 1,500lb payload up to 11,000km, well within range of the US West Coast, although North Korea has yet to flight-test them.
Mr Trump’s readiness to use force, demonstrated with the attack on a Syrian air base on April 7 and the use of the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ in Afghanistan last week, led to fears of a pre-emptive strike from the US to nip North Korea’s fledgling nuclear programme in the bud.
The Russian ambassador in Pyongyang, Alexander Matsegora, said this weekend that a new missile test by North Korea was a ‘high probability’, despite the chances of US reprisals.