FAILURE TO LAUNCH
North Korea attempts ballistic missile launch but it explodes ‘almost immediately’ in embarrassing blow for Kim Jong-un just hours after display of missiles ‘that could nuke America’
KIM Jong-Un enraged the US this morning by staging yet another missile test — but the launch was an embarrassing flop.
South Korea’s military reported the attempt near the Sinpo region, the same area from which the North tested a ballistic missile last month.
US officials said the missile in today’s test exploded on launch but they don’t know exactly what type of weapon it was.
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The incident is likely to escalate the rising tensions between the US and North Korea over Pyongyang’s rogue nuclear weapons ambitions.
It came a day after the parade marking 105 years since the state’s found Kim Il-sung was born.
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North Korea has tested several missiles recently.
They launched a long-range rocket and conducted two nuclear tests last year, including its most powerful to date, as well as carrying out a slew of shorter range missile firings.
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A smirking Kim Jong-Un watched a fervent military parade just hours after telling America: "We're ready for war."
Chief among the devastating arsenal on show during the parade was a KN-08 rocket, thought to be capable of flying more than 7,000miles - within range of Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC.
US military experts reacted with shock to the display, as one admitted "we're floored right now".
Shell-shocked North Korean experts admit the secretive nation now appears far more advanced than previously thought.
Dave Schmerler, a research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, told : "We’re totally floored right now. I was not expecting to see this many new missile designs.”
Also on display was the similarly devastating KN-14 rocket.
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Thousands of heavily-armed North Koreans marched through capital Pyongyang alongside the missiles as the smiling despot lapped up the adoration of his fanatical military - many reduced to tears by his mere presence.
Only hours earlier a top general had told state TV: "We're prepared to respond to an all-out war with an all-out war."
North Korean military official Choe Ryong-Hae said: "If the United States wages reckless provocation against us, our revolutionary power will instantly counter with [an] annihilating strike... with our style of nuclear strike warfare."
Choe's menacing words carried extra threat given many Western commentators consider him the country's second-in-command.
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Widespread earlier fears that Kim would use the Day of the Sun holiday to carry out a sixth nuclear warhead test explosion have yet to materialise.
Kim was celebrating the 105th anniversary of the birth of grandfather Kim Il-Sung - the founder of the communist state.
Wearing a black suit, the 33-year-old tyrant stepped out of a limousine and on to a red carpet as he arrived for the event in the capital.
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There, he watched thousands of fanatical soldiers goose-step through Kim Il-Sung square while intercontinental ballistic missiles shared the tarmac with tanks and assault vehicles.
The sabre-rattling display comes just a day after China warned that "war could break out at any moment".
A US naval taskforce is on its way to the Korean peninsula in a show of force to nuclear-seeking Kim.
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And Trump's forces yesterday put on their own show of strength as US tanks were pictured carrying out drills in
The North Korean army has already threatened to ‘pulverise’ the US as tensions soar amid claims Kim Jong-un could hit Western targets with his missiles within four years.
The two countries have been facing off over Pyongyang's rogue atomic ambitions in recent weeks.
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Kim Jong-un looks set to carry out a sixth nuclear test after satellites picked up increased activity at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.
And senior US intelligence sources claim Donald Trump is prepared to launch a pre-emptive strike if the test goes ahead.
As hostilities in the region surge, the US president has sent an aircraft carrier-led strike group to the Korean peninsula in a show of strength.
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The North's Korean People's Army has now released a statement saying Trump had "entered the path of open threat and blackmail against the DPRK".
Citing Washington's recent missile strike on Syria, the statement boasted that US military bases in South Korea "would be pulverized within a few minutes" if they were to launch a similar strike against Pyongyang.
This will not lead to a war
By Richard Kemp, retired British Army Colonel
I DON’T think this will amount to anything at all. North Korea knows it cannot possibly survive an attack by them against either the US or its allies.
Its dictator would not last long, so I think there is no chance that they would initiate any serious military action.
The Americans are not interested in conflict with them, so they will not initiate anything.
I also believe the Chinese are interested in calming the situation down.
I think the actions of Trump in Syria and Afghanistan, if anything, make conflict with North Korea less likely.
Both the strikes he ordered were legitimate and proportionate, and sent a message around the world that you do not mess with America anymore.
They signalled that you may have been able to mess with America under Obama — but you cannot do the same with Trump or you will suffer for it.
That deterrent is far more likely to prevent a conflict than provoke it. So I would say don’t worry — there will not be a conflict between the US and North Korea.
The statement added: "The closer such big targets as nuclear powered aircraft carriers come (to the Korean peninsula), the greater would be the effect of merciless strikes."
But talk of pre-emptive action against the rogue state continues to swirl as experts estimated the country would be able to hit Western targets within four years.
Former CIA officer Dennis Wilder told Kim would be able to strike at both the US west coast and Australia very soon if he was able to keep developing his missiles.
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He said: "Such a move would be disastrous – after all a 10-kiloton weapon could kill 100,000 people.
"We believe, and American intelligence estimates say this, that the North Koreans could have such a weapon within the next four years."
And the Japanese PM Shinzo Abe warned North Korea was capable of filling its missiles with deadly sarin nerve gas – the same poison used in the recent chemical attack in Syria.
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Chief government spokesman Yoshihide Suga added: “North Korea… is likely to maintain several facilities to produce chemical weapons and already possess a considerable number of them.”
Other countries have waded in to try and calm tensions, with Vladimir Putin urging both sides to show “restraint”.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi also called for all parties to step back from the brink, claiming that a conflict over North Korea could break out "at any moment".
He said Pyongyang and Washington should take care not to start down an “irreversible path” – warning there would be no winner in any war.
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