North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the state's military to set its missiles to "ready to strike" America and South Korea in order to "settle accounts with the U.S.," he announced through government-run media Friday.
Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), a state-run news outlet that often acts as the mouthpiece for Kim and the North Korean government, reported that after the U.S. flew two B-52 stealth bombers over South Korea Thursday as part of ongoing joint military exercises with the South, Kim "convened an urgent operation meeting" of his senior generals minutes after midnight Friday, signed a plan to ready the nation's rockets and directed troops to remain on "standby" for an attack on the U.S. mainland, South Korea, Guam and Hawaii, according to CBS News.
"The time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation," Kim declared, KCNA reported.
Mere "hours" following Kim's orders, thousands of North Koreans reportedly flooded the main square of Pyongyang for a 90-minute rally that included motivational chants like "Death to the U.S. imperialists" and "Sweep away the U.S. aggressors," according to the New York Times.
KCNA also released a series of photos early Friday morning - one of which is the photo at the top of this article - showing Kim and his senior generals studying a set of plans for what look to be plans for an invasion of the U.S. According to NK News, that's almost certainly a "deliberate" move of intimidating propaganda by Pyongyang. The picture also shows a chart displayed in the background that looks to show various lines firing out of North Korea and into major U.S. cities on both the East and West coast, and also Hawaii. The charts is titled "Strategic force's plan to hit the mainland of the U.S.," according to The Washington Post.
As many experts on the region point out, while the exact nuclear capabilities of North Korea remain uncertain because the nation's intense isolation, evidence suggests that Pyongyang is still many years away from developing nuclear missiles, and doesn't currently have weaponry to pull off such far off strikes, especially on America's East coast. The most pressing concern in light of North Korea's threatening moves is Pyongyang trying to draw the South into an attack. North Korea may not have long-range missiles able to hit the U.S., but it does have an arsenal of short- and mid-range missiles that can hit targets in South Korea and Japan.
"The North can fire 500,000 rounds of artillery on Seoul in the first hour of a conflict," wrote analysts Victor Cha and David Kang for Foreign Policy magazine.
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. 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. After the missions, North Korea claimed the bombers had its citizens "burning with hatred" for the U.S.
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.