Threats from North Korea will be met with a ‘massive military response’, US officials said last night after the rogue state announced it had carried out its most powerful nuclear test yet.
The US had ‘many options’ which could lead to the ‘annihilation’ of North Korea, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said.
‘Any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam, or our allies will be met with a massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming,’ Mr Mattis said.
‘Kim Jong-un should take heed of the UN Security Council’s unified voice. We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea, but as I said, we have many options to do so.’
Earlier, when asked if he planned to attack Pyongyang, Donald Trump replied, ‘We’ll see’, and said he was holding a meeting with his military leaders.
Kim Jong-un was pictured inspecting the peanut-shaped device – the design and scale of which indicated it had a powerful thermonuclear warhead. State media said it was a bomb intended for an intercontinental ballistic missile
Mr Trump also tweeted that talk of appeasement was pointless because North Korea ‘only understand one thing’, as the state promised further tests.
His hard-line rhetoric was prompted by Pyongyang’s announcement that it had successfully tested a weapon seven times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
The regime described its testing of the hydrogen bomb as a ‘perfect success’. Kim Jong-un was pictured inspecting the peanut-shaped device – the design and scale of which indicated it had a powerful thermonuclear warhead. State media said it was a bomb intended for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In July, North Korea tested two ICBMs that are believed to be capable of reaching the US mainland.
Analysts say the claims should be treated with caution, but the state’s nuclear capability is clearly advancing. The UN Security Council will meet today to discuss North Korea’s test.
Yesterday’s announcement prompted international condemnation, with Prime Minister Theresa May criticising the ‘reckless’ act and urging a speeding-up of sanctions. She said North Korea’s actions posed an ‘unacceptable further threat to the international community’ and called for ‘tougher action’.
Mrs May added that she had discussed the ‘serious and grave threat these dangerous and illegal actions present’ with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during her visit to the country last week.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the announcement represented ‘a new order of threat’ before stating that ‘all options are on the table’. Yet he cautioned that there were no easy military solutions, saying North Korea could ‘basically vaporise large sections of the South Korean population’ if the West attacks.
The hydrogen bomb’s power is adjustable and can be detonated at high altitudes, North Korea said (Kim pictured in photos released on Sunday)
Yonhap, South Korea’s official news agency, reports the quake struck where North Korea’s nuclear test site Punggye-ri is located
When asked outside church whether an attack was possible, the president (pictured left, with the First Lady, and right with a cleric) only said, ‘We’ll see’
Shortly after leaving church and before Mattis’s comments, Trump said that the US was ‘considering… stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea’
South Korean president Moon Jae-in said claims of North Korea’s sixth nuclear test should be met with the ‘strongest possible’ response, including new sanctions. Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said measures should include restrictions on the trade of oil products.
Meanwhile, China, North Korea’s only major ally, declared its ‘resolute opposition and strong condemnation’ of the announcement, saying the state had ‘ignored’ widespread opposition.
Russia, which has also backed the state, said the test defied international law and urged all sides involved to hold talks.
Mr Trump initially responded to the news by firing off a series of tweets hinting at military action.
The detonation was announced by news anchor Ri Chun-hee (pictured), who has been making proclamations on Korean Central Television for more than 40 years
Photos released yesterday show the country’s leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the hydrogen device that it promised would be loaded on a new intercontinental ballistic missile
‘Appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing,’ he said. He also branded the country a ‘rogue nation’ whose ‘words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States’. Mr Trump later announced that he would consider suspending trade with countries that ‘do business’ with North Korea – which includes China.
Last month, he resolved to respond to North Korea’s nuclear threats with ‘fire and fury like the world has never seen’.
The White House said Mr Trump’s national security team was ‘monitoring [the situation] closely’. But any military action will be opposed by China and Russia, who share a border with the state and will not accept US-backed neighbours.
News of the state’s sixth nuclear test emerged after South Korea reported a magnitude 5.7 earthquake, which the North said was triggered by the detonation of the thermonuclear device. The earthquake was several times stronger than from previous blasts and reportedly shook buildings in China and Russia.
This picture released by the North Korean government late last week shows the last test launch by the country
It came a decade after North Korea’s first nuclear test and represents a significant escalation of its programme. North Korea last carried out a nuclear test in September 2016. A week ago, Pyongyang fired a missile over Japanese territory in its most provocative test before yesterday’s announcement.
Although the earthquake and the release of photographs of Kim suggest the device was real, there has been no independent verification. North Korea said there would be no radioactive materials to prove the hydrogen bomb’s existence because it was detonated underground.
But a US intelligence expert said there was no reason to doubt that the state tested ‘an advanced nuclear device’.
Melissa Hanham, of the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies, told the BBC: ‘There is no way of telling if this is the actual device that was exploded in the tunnel – it could even be a model – but the messaging is clear.
‘They want to demonstrate that they know what makes a credible nuclear warhead.’