'Combat-ready' N. Korea threatens US mainland, Hawaii

 

 

SEOUL — North Korea's military put its "strategic" rocket units on a war footing Tuesday, with a fresh threat to strike targets on the US mainland, Hawaii and Guam, as well as South Korea.
The move came as South Korea marked the third anniversary of the sinking of its naval vessel "Cheonan" by what Seoul insists was a North Korean submarine.
"All artillery troops including strategic rocket units and long-range artillery units are to be placed under class-A combat readiness," the Korean People's Army (KPA) supreme command said in a statement.
The units should be prepared to attack "all US military bases in the Asia-Pacific region, including the US mainland, Hawaii and Guam" and South Korea, said the statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
Despite a successful long-range rocket launch in December, most experts believe North Korea is years from developing a genuine inter-continental ballistic missile that could strike the mainland United States.
Hawaii and Guam would also be outside the range of its medium-range missiles, which would be capable, however, of striking US bases in South Korea and Japan.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has spent the past few weeks touring frontline military units, monitoring live fire artillery drills and making inflammatory speeches about wiping out the enemy.
Sabre-rattling and displays of brinkmanship are nothing new in the region, but there are concerns that the current situation is so volatile that one accidental step could escalate into serious conflict.
"We are closely monitoring the situation. So far there has been no particular North Korean troop movement," a South Korean defence ministry spokesman said.
Addressing a ceremony for the 46 sailors who died in the 2010 "Cheonan" incident, South Korean President Park Geun-Hye warned Pyongyang that its only "path to survival" lay in abandoning its nuclear and missile programs.
The North has always denied sinking the Cheonan, but a few months later it launched an artillery attack on a South Korean border island, killing four people.
North Korea's patron and sole major ally China was quick to urge calm from all sides Tuesday.
"We hope that relevant parties will exercise restraint so as to ease the tension," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
Military tensions on the Korean peninsula have been at an elevated level for months, following December's rocket launch and the North's third nuclear test which it carried out last month.
Both events triggered UN sanctions that infuriated the North, which has spent the past month issuing increasingly threatening statements about unleashing an "all-out war" backed by nuclear weapons.
It was particularly incensed that nuclear-capable US B-52 bombers flying out of Andersen Air base on Guam took part in recent joint South Korea-US military exercises.
"We will demonstrate the firm resolution of our people and military to protect our sovereignty and dignity through real military action," the KPA statement warned.
The latest threat came days after the South Korean and US militaries signed a new pact, envisaging a joint military response to even low-level provocation by North Korea.
While existing agreements provide for US engagement in the event of a full-scale conflict, the new protocol addresses the response to a limited provocation such as an isolated incident of cross-border shelling.
It guarantees US support for any South Korean retaliation and allows Seoul to request any additional US military force it deems necessary.
In an open letter to troops published to mark the Cheonan anniversary, South Korea's hawkish defence minister, Kim Kwan-Jin, said there was a "high possibility" the North's threats might be translated into action.
He also reiterated that South Korea's response to any provocation would not only target the origin of the attack, "but also its supporting and commanding forces".
Late last year, South Korea deployed cruise missiles it said were capable of carrying out high-precision strikes on targets anywhere in North Korea.

North Korea Threats: Pyongyang Steps Up Rhetoric Against U.S. Bases In Japan And Guam

SEOUL, March 21 (Reuters) - North Korea said it would attack U.S. military bases on Japan and the Pacific island of Guam if provoked, a day after leader Kim Jong-un oversaw a mock drone strike on South Korea.

The North also held an air raid drill on Thursday after accusing the United States of preparing a military strike using bombers that have overflown the Korean peninsula as part of drills between South Korean and U.S. forces.

North Korea has stepped up its rhetoric in response to what it calls "hostile" drills between South Korea and the United States. It has also been angered by the imposition of fresh U.N. sanctions that followed its Feb. 12 nuclear test.

Separately, South Korea said a hacking attack on the servers of local broadcasters and banks on Wednesday originated from an IP address in China, raising suspicions the intrusion came from North Korea.

"The United States is advised not to forget that our precision target tools have within their range the Anderson Air Force base on Guam where the B-52 takes off, as well as the Japanese mainland where nuclear powered submarines are deployed and the navy bases on Okinawa," the North's supreme military command spokesman was quoted as saying by the KCNA news agency.

Japan and U.S. Pacific bases are in range of Pyongyang's medium-range missiles.

It is not known if North Korea possesses drones, although a report on South Korea's Yonhap news agency last year said it had obtained 1970s-era U.S. target drones from Syria to develop into attack drones.

"The (drone) planes were assigned the flight route and time with the targets in South Korea in mind, Kim Jong-un said, adding with great satisfaction that they were proved to be able to mount (a) super-precision attack on any enemy targets," KCNA reported.

It is extremely rare for KCNA to specify the day on which Kim attended a drill. It also said a rocket defence unit had successfully shot down a target that mimicked an "enemy" Tomahawk cruise missile.

North Korea has said it has abrogated an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War and threatened a nuclear attack on the United States.

Although North Korea lacks the technology to carry out such an attack, Washington said it would deploy more anti-missile batteries in Alaska to counter any threat.


PYONGYANG HAS HACKED SOUTH KOREA BEFORE

The hacking attack brought down the servers of South Korean broadcasters YTN, MBC and KBS as well as two major commercial banks, Shinhan Bank and NongHyup Bank.

South Korean communications regulators said the attack originated from an IP address based in China.

An unnamed official from South Korea's presidential office was quoted by the Yonhap news agency as saying the discovery of the Chinese IP address indicated Pyongyang was responsible.

Investigations of past hacking incidents on South Korean organisations have been traced to Pyongyang's large army of computer engineers trained to infiltrate the South's computer networks.

At least one previous attack was traced to a Chinese IP address.

South Korea's defence ministry said it was too early to blame the North but said such a cyber capability was a key part of its arsenal. Experts say thousands of North Korean engineers may have been recruited for the purpose.

"Throughout the world, states that create cyber warfare and engage in those types of activities are precisely the same countries that develop nuclear weapons," Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.

"North Korea has strongly stepped up development of asymmetrical strategy with nuclear development and many types of ballistic missiles as well as a special forces of 200,000 strong." (Additional reporting by Ju-min Park. Editing by Dean Yates)