Guam lined up for warning shots
NORTH KOREA: North Korea yesterday announced a detailed plan to launch a volley of ballistic missiles toward the United States Pacific territory of Guam, a major military hub and home to US bombers, and dismissed President Donald Trump’s threats of ``fire and fury’’ if it doesn’t back down.
The announcement, made in the name of a general who heads North Korea’s rocket command, warned the North is preparing a plan to fire four of its Hwasong-12 missiles over Japan and into waters around the tiny island, which hosts 7000 US military personnel on two main bases and has a population of 160,000.
It said the plan could be finalised within a week or so and would then go to leader Kim Jong Un for approval. It would be up to Kim whether the move is actually carried out. It said the missiles would hit waters 30 to 40km away from the island.
It is unclear whether North Korea would risk firing missiles so close to US territory, which could provoke counter-measures and further escalation.
North Korea frequently uses extremely bellicose rhetoric with warnings of military action to keep its adversaries on their heels. It generally couches its threats with language stating it will not attack the US unless it has been attacked first or has determined an attack is imminent.
But the statement raised worries amid a barrage of threats from both sides.
Following reports that US intelligence suggests the North might be able to pair a nuclear warhead with a missile capable of reaching targets on the US mainland, Trump warned North Korea that ``it faces retaliation with fire and fury unlike any the world has seen before’’.
Pyongyang, meanwhile, has been louder in its complaints against a new and tough round of sanctions imposed on it by the United Nations, with strong US backing, and Washington’s use of Guam as a staging ground for its stealth bombers, which could be used to attack North Korea and are a particularly sore point with the rulers in Pyongyang.
Even so, its reported plan to launch missiles toward Guam is extremely unusual.
The report said the Hwasong-12 rockets would fly over Shimane, Hiroshima and Koichi prefectures in Japan and travel ‘‘1065 seconds before hitting the waters 30 to 40km away from Guam’’.
It said the Korean People’s Army Strategic Force will finalise the plan by mid-August, present it to Kim Jong Un and ‘‘wait for his order’’.
Such a move would not merely be a test launch, but a demonstration of military capabilities in a manner than could easily lead to severe consequences.
If North Korea were to actually carry out such a launch – even if it aimed at hitting the waters off the island and not the island itself – that would clearly pose a potential threat to US territory and put the US in a much more complicated situation than it has been during previous missile launches.
It’s extremely unlikely Kim’s government would risk annihilation with a pre-emptive attack on US citizens in Guam. It’s also unclear how reliable North Korea’s missiles would be against such a distant target, but no-one was writing off the danger completely.
Washington has been testing its missile defences in response to the North’s stepped-up development and the escalation of tensions could lead to pressure for the US military to try to shoot down the North’s missiles in midflight if they are heading toward Guam.