Pyongyang, North Korea. If the US thought that a missile intercept test was going to stop North Korea from continuing its weapons of mass destruction development program, they were sadly mistaken.
America’s Defense Department fired a new type of ground-based anti-missile rocket in southern California, aiming to intercept an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile fired from a test site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, located in the central Pacific Ocean. According to the Pentagon, the test was a dramatic success, scoring a “direct hit” in the incoming mock ICBM and “annihilating” the targeted missile.
“This test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat,” said Vice Admiral James D. Syring of the Missile Defense Agency following the successful shootdown.
North Korea on Saturday played down the successful test of an interceptor missile system by the United States earlier this week, calling it a “bluff” and ridiculing the US for “a foolish act of those driven to despair,” in a statement issued by the DPRK News Agency, the state-run media outlet of the North Korean government.
“They are now bluffing, bragging about the ‘success’ in the test and the efficiency of the missile interception system. But the DPRK considers it just as a foolish act of those driven to despair,” the statement said. “The last-ditch gambling of the Trump administration for a nuclear war will only bring earlier the day when the US mainland will turn into ashes.”
The North Korean statement claimed that the test was “a sign that United States preparations for unleashing a nuclear war against the DPRK have reached the final phase.”
The US indeed does have two US Navy aircraft carriers with nuclear weapons onboard off the Korean coast. A few days ago, the USS Nimitz-an unprecedented third aircraft carrier is headed for Korea along with two more nuclear missile equipped submarines.
“Their foolhardy moves go to clearly prove that the DPRK’s step for bolstering the nuclear force for self-defense is entirely just,” said an unnamed spokesperson for the North Korean Strategic Force. “They are sadly mistaken if they think such missile interception system can prevent the shower of nuclear strike by the Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army.”