Kim’s defences build-up raises fears of strikes on US jets
NORTH Korea yesterday raised fears Kim Jong-un would carry out his threat to strike US air force jets by bolstering its defences.
Leading South Korean politician Lee Cheol-uoo claimed the paranoid dictator had moved aircraft to its east coast.
The secretive state has vowed to shoot down US fighter planes and bombers even if they are not in its air space.
It comes after Pyongyang accused Donald Trump of issuing a “declaration of war” with a string of provocative tweets aimed at Jong-Un, whom he dubbed “Little Rocket Man”. The tubby despot retaliated by branding the president “deranged”. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted the US had “not declared war against North Korea”.
And military chief Marine General Joseph Dunford dismissed Mr Cheol-uoo’s claim that the North had raised its threat level. He said: “While the political space is very charged, we haven’t seen a change in the posture of North Korean forces and we watch that very closely.” It came as the parents of US student Otto Warmbier spoke for the first time about his death after returning from a prison in North Korea where he was tortured into a coma.
Fred and Cindy Warmbier said the 22-year-old was blind and deaf and his teeth were mangled. Cindy, of Cincinnati, Ohio, added: “To see how he came home was too much for us.” Tourist Otto was given 18 months for an alleged theft of a poster from a hotel.