FEARS RISE OF U.S. STRIKE ON N KOREA

‘All options on table’ as Kim defies West with weapon test

THE US refused to rule out a preemptive strike on North Korea last night as Donald Trump’s national security adviser warned the situation was ‘coming to a head’.

After the rogue state ran a missile test that failed, Lieutenant General HR McMaster said ‘all our options are on the table’ to try to ‘avoid the worst’.

Frantic talks were taking place with allies including China to ‘develop a range of options’ in an attempt to quell tensions and calm fears of thermo-nuclear war.

But, with a strike group of US forces already posted to the Korean Peninsula, the US President added further fuel to the fire, saying he had been forced to beef up his military. On Twitter, Mr Trump wrote: ‘Our military is building and is rapidly becoming stronger than ever before. Frankly, we have no choice.’

Mr Trump and General McMaster said they hoped China would convince its neighbour, which depends on Beijing to prop up its trades and finances, to stop the crisis escalating.

On Saturday dictator Kim Jong-un’s regime displayed its military muscle in a huge parade, before yesterday’s missile test which exploded within seconds.

The medium-range missile – fired from a base in the Sinpo area – ended in farce because it ‘blew up almost immediately’, sources said. The US Pacific Command said it believed it to be a ballistic missile, which is initially powered and guided, but then uses gravity to fall to its target.

Experts said it was not an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which would be able to reach targets around the world. Kim’s ultimate aim is to be able to put a nuclear warhead on an ICBM.

US Vice President Mike Pence, who had flown into South Korea yesterday, accused North Korea of ‘provocation’.

He said the US was going to rebuild its military, ‘restore the arsenal of democracy’ and give troops the resources they needed to accomplish their mission. Evoking former president George W Bush’s speeches on the eve of the Afghan and Iraq wars, Mr Pence said ‘freedom will ever prevail’.

And Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson posted on Twitter: ‘I strongly condemn the latest North Korean missile launch. They must stop these belligerent acts and comply with UN resolutions.’

General McMaster said the latest missile launch ‘fits a pattern of provocative and destabilising and threatening behaviour on the part of the North Korean regime’.

In Afghan capital Kabul, he told ABC’s This Week show: ‘All our options are on the table, undergoing refinement and further devel- opment’. He said: ‘The President has made clear that he will not accept the United States and its allies and partners in the region being under threat from this hostile regime with nuclear weapons.

‘And so we’re working together with our allies and partners, and with the Chinese leadership, to develop a range of options.’

He said the National Security Council was collaborating with the Pentagon, the State Department, and intelligence agencies to provide Mr Trump with options.

The General said it was the consensus of the US, along with allies in the region, that ‘this problem is coming to a head’. He added: ‘And so it’s time for us to undertake all actions we can, short of a military option, to try to resolve this peacefully. In the coming weeks, months, I think there’s a great opportunity for all of us... to take action short of armed conflict so we can avoid the worst.’

Beijing, Pyongyang’s biggest ally, has come under pressure from Washington to exert more influence on its neighbour.

Mr Trump said China was ‘working with us’ on the issue – the first confirmation the two nations were collaborating.

Tensions between North Korea and the US were already on a knife-edge over the posting of the strike group led by a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the region – a move that was denounced by North Korea.

Pyongyang then rolled out its deadly arsenal on Saturday.

Ballistic missiles and canisters capable of housing intercontinental ballistic missiles that could strike the US mainland were among those items on display.

But North Korea did not carry out its sixth nuclear bomb test, as previously feared. A White House official said that, had it been a nuclear test, ‘other actions would have been taken by the US’. Mr Pence – on a ten-day trip to Asia – told US troops: ‘This morning’s provocation is just the latest reminder of the risks each one of you face every day in the defence of the freedom of the people of South Korea and the defence of America in this part of the world.’

Thousands of US and South Korean troops, tanks and other weaponry had been deployed last month in their biggest-ever joint military exercises. That led North Korea to issue routine threats of attacks on its rivals if they showed signs of aggression.

‘Freedom will ever prevail’

THE Mail – like millions of people around the world who fear the outbreak of war – had hoped that over the Easter weekend the growing tensions in the Korean peninsula would abate. Instead, both sides seem determined to crank them up still further.

From the US, the drumbeat of war is growing louder. Not content with sending a powerful naval force to the region, President Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to boast about the scale of the military build-up.

Fuelling fears of a pre-emptive strike against North Korea’s nuclear facilities, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster declares that ‘all options are on the table’. And, with chilling echoes of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Vice President Mike Pence used a visit to the South Korean capital Seoul yesterday to declare ‘freedom will ever prevail on this peninsula’.

The prospect of an unprovoked attack by the US is truly terrifying. It would inevitably spark a backlash from Kim Jong-un. Worse, it would risk dragging China into defending its close ally and raise the chances of a devastating nuclear conflict.

There is little comfort to be had from the failure of North Korea’s missile launch, although at least the regime did not attempt to detonate another nuclear bomb. Nevertheless, it has a frightening array of conventional weapons pointed at South Korea and has promised to respond to any attack with an ‘annihilating strike’.

If US sabre-rattling is designed to force China into restraining Kim Jong-un, the unhinged dictator it props up with food supplies and power, and curtailing his nuclear programme, it shows little sign of working.

In the past fortnight, Mr Trump has abandoned entirely his election campaign promises to avoid foreign entanglements.

With former generals now apparently dictating policy in the White House, he has inflamed the Middle East with a cruise missile assault on a Syrian airbase and dropped the ‘mother of all bombs’ on Afghanistan. Instead of a further act of recklessness in attacking North Korea, Mr Trump should step back from the brink and – if he is capable of it – engage in calm, level-headed diplomacy.

In his Easter message, Pope Francis urged restraint and told world leaders to have ‘the courage they need to prevent the spread of conflicts’. For all our sakes, it is a message they should urgently heed.