The North Koreans are responding in kind to President Trump’s harsh rhetoric about launching a U.S. counteroffensive with “fire and fury” if Pyongyang dares to seriously threaten America and her allies. Taking a defiant stance, North Korea is now threatening to strike a U.S. military base in Guam.
A statement issued late Wednesday by the Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army specifically places the bullseye on Anderson Air Force Base in Guam:
Anderson Air Force Base in which the U.S. strategic bombers, which get on the nerves of the DPRK and threaten and blackmail it through their frequent visits to the sky above south Korea, are stationed and to send a serious warning signal to the US.
A spokesman for the Korean People’s Army noted that the strike plan will be “put into practice in a multi-current and consecutive way any moment” once Kim Jong Un makes a decision on whether or not to launch a direct strike against the world’s sole superpower
The military is “examining the operational plan” to strike strategic targets with medium-to-long-range strategic ballistic missiles, adds the statement.
Read the full statement below:
#NorthKorea military considers firing Hwasong-12 missiles near US military bases on #Guam https://t.co/gBKiX0rSNb pic.twitter.com/l9KPVCvSQi
— Sangwon Yoon (@sangwonyoon) August 8, 2017
So why Anderson Air Force Base (AFB)?
The statement directly alludes to the United States’ use of AFB as a launching pad for warplanes circling North Korea.
A spokesman for the Pacific Air Forces confirmed this week that the U.S. flew two B1B bombers from AFB over the Korean peninsula on Monday. The spokesman added that the bombers flew as part of a “continuous bomber presence.” Japanese and South Korean military aircraft accompanied the U.S. planes in its show of force.
In choosing AFB as a target, the North Koreans have a chosen a site of immense strategic importance to the U.S. and its allies in the region. AFB is the site of the first THAAD missile battery system developed to intercept hostile enemy missiles targeting American allies in the Pacific. The United States recently placed another THAAD system in South Korea in an effort to deter North Korean aggression. Beijiing, Pyongyang’s de facto patron, sees the THAAD system as a threat against its own national security. The Chinese have argued that the system is part and parcel of an effort to help the United States collect intelligence information and impose control over the region.
US has THAAD anti-ballistic missile battery in Guam since 2015. First permanent deployment of THAAD outside continental United States https://t.co/amwISMyEZk
— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) August 8, 2017