Kim warns US, but it’s conditional
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Tuesday that leader Kim Jong Un was briefed on his military’s plans to launch missiles into waters near Guam as part of an effort to create “enveloping fire” near the U.S. military hub in the Pacific.
The comments, while typically belligerent, are significant because they appeared to signal a path to defuse a deepening crisis with Washington over a North Korean weapons program that is seen as having the ability to be able to send a nuclear missile to the U.S. mainland.
During an inspection of the army’s Strategic Forces, Kim praised the military for drawing up a “close and careful plan” and said he would watch the “foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees” a little more before deciding whether to give an order for the missile test, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
Kim said North Korea will conduct the planned missile launches if the “Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity” and that the United States should “think reasonably and judge property” to avoid shame, the news agency said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the United States would take out any such missile seen to be heading for American soil and that any such North Korean attack could lead to war.
Kim’s comments, however, seemed to hold out the possibility that friction could ease if the United States made some sort of gesture that Pyongyang considered a move to back away from previous “extremely dangerous reckless actions.” The United States and South Korea plan next week, however, to start annual defensive military drills that the North claims are preparation for invasion.
On Monday, Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford held a series of meetings in Seoul with senior South Korean military and political officials and the local media. He also made comments that appeared to be an attempt to ease anxiety over tit-for-tat threats between President Donald Trump and North Korea.
Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. wants to peacefully resolve tensions with North Korea. But Washington is also ready to use the “full range” of its military capabilities in case of provocation, Dunford said.
Dunford is visiting South Korea, Japan and China after a week in which Trump declared the U.S. military “locked and loaded” for possible action against North Korea.
The Korean People’s Army’s Strategic Forces said last week that it would finalize by mid-August a plan to fire four intermediate ballistic missiles near Guam, which is about 2,000 miles from Pyongyang, and send it to Kim for his approval.
The North Korean plans to fire near Guam are based on the Hwasong-12, a new intermediate range missile the country successfully flighttested for the first time in May. The liquid-fuel missile is designed to be fired from mobile launchers and has been previously described by North Korea as built for attacking Alaska and Hawaii.
The North followed the May launch with two flight tests of its Hwasong-14 ICBM last month. Analysts said that a wide swath of the continental United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago, could be within reach of those missiles, once perfected.
The latest Korea Central News Agency report said Kim ordered his military to be prepared to launch the missiles toward Guam at any time.
OKLAHOMA CITY — A 23-year-old man was “out for blood” when he attempted to detonate what he believed was an explosives-laden van outside an Oklahoma City bank in a plot similar to the deadly 1995 bombing of the city’s federal building, authorities said Monday.
During a meeting with undercover FBI agents in June, Jerry Drake Varnell of Sayre, Oklahoma, said he held “III% ideology” and wanted “to start the next revolution,” a reference to the “Three Percenters” patriot movement. Begun in 2008 and galvanized by President Barack Obama’s election that year, the movement has opposed gun-control efforts and pledged resistance to the federal government over the perceived infringement of constitutional rights.
Federal officials arrested Varnell early Saturday in connection with a plot to detonate a vehicle bomb in an alley adjacent to BancFirst in downtown Oklahoma City. Varnell is charged with attempting to use explosives to destroy a building in interstate commerce.
A federal complaint filed on Sunday says a confidential informant told the FBI in December that Varnell wanted to blow up a building and “that Varnell was upset with the government and was seeking retaliation.”
An undercover FBI agent posing as someone who could help Varnell build a bomb met with him on June 1. According to the complaint, Varnell said killing a lot of people was not a good idea, and during text conversations in July, he said he wanted to conduct the bank attack after closing time to prevent casualties. He conceded that any bank workers or custodians inside could be killed or injured, the complaint says.
It says Varnell helped assemble the purported bomb and load it into what he believed was a stolen van; he then drove about 30 miles to the bank and dialed a number on a cellphone, believing that would trigger the explosion.
The complaint also says that Varnell prepared a statement to be posted on Facebook after the explosion saying it was “retaliation against the freedoms that have been taken away from the American people.”