North Korea condemned U.S. stealth bomber missions over the South Thursday, calling the military terrorists, and threatening to destroy an American Air Force base in Guam.
The U.S. military flew two of its B-52 stealth bombers from Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri on a 13,000 mile round-trip "single continuous mission" and dropped "dummy ordnances" on targets set up in South Korea, American armed forces announced in a statement, according to the Telegraph.
"This ... demonstrates the United States' ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes quickly and at will," the statement declared.
The aircraft exercises were part of the joint U.S.-South Korean military drills that the North has recently used as a reason for intensifying its war posturing, constantly threatening peace in the region.
After the missions, North Korea claimed the bombers had its citizens "burning with hatred" for the U.S.
"How can we pardon the Yankees who hatched even a sinister plot to defame the supreme dignity, which we regard dearer than our own lives, not content with staging madcap nuclear war drills?" said Cha Ok Chol, a Korean People's Army officer, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), a state-run news outlet.
The KCNA criticized the military drills as "hideous politically-motivated terrorism of the US and the South Korean puppet forces targeting the dignified social system in the DPRK".
Pyongyang also proclaimed that it would "sweep away" the U.S. Andersen Air Force Base on Guam, KCNA announced.
Earlier in the week, North Korea claimed it had cut a hotline with South Korea Wednesday and cautioned the United Nations that it was only a matter of time before violence erupted, saying the tensions had developed into a "simmering nuclear war." After severing another hotline earlier in the month, North Korea cut yet another link between itself and the South, ceasing operations at Kaesong, and industrial complex ran by the countries together. The complex was the last symbolic remnant of cooperation between the two Koreas.
This is the second time this month that North Korea has cut a hotline between itself and the South. North Korea declared "merciless" retaliation on the South and U.S. March 11, this time for the pair's joint military maneuvers, and announced it was formally ending the 1953 armistice that stopped the Korean War, and "voiding" peace treaties with Seoul. North Korea also cut off its military and Red Cross hotlines with South Korea, officially severing the hotline it shares with South Korea Monday, Seoul confirmed. South Korea rejected Pyongyang's declaration, saying the North could not unilaterally dissolve the treaty.
Faced with the endless flood of hostile behavior from Pyongyang, the U.S. and South Korea signed a new military contingency pact March 21 in preparation for future North Korean "provocations."
The new joint plan addresses the possibility of a "limited attack" from North Korea, such as Pyongyang's sinking of the Choenan that left 46 sailors dead, and its shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in December 2010, Department of Defense officials said, according to the BBC. While a pact has long existed providing for U.S. support in the event of a nuclear attack on South Korea, the newly signed contingency plan will provide "immediate and decisive response" to such antagonism, said Lt. Col. Cathy Wilkinson, a Pentagon spokeswoman, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Recently, North Korea also announced its strategic rocket and artillery units were set in combat position and aimed at military bases in the U.S. in preparation for battle. This is far from the first time North Korea has declared its military was "combat ready" to stoke international tensions. When North Korea revealed it was removing the country from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1993, Pyongyang also said the nation was on "pre-war" status.
Pyongyang has made a point in recent months of displaying its military brawn through open threats aimed at the U.S. and South, provocative military exercises aimed at South Korean targets, and more. North Korea has continuously ratcheted up its aggressive rhetoric ever since its third nuclear test launch in February.
While North Korea's antagonism has become as dependable as the sunrise, experts on the region caution its impossible to tell just what North Korea will do next or the country's true nuclear capabilities.