READY TO STRIKE
North Korea moves warplanes into US bombers’ flight path after warning Trump they’ll shoot down any American jet they see
NORTH Korea has moved jet fighters to the coast to intercept US bombers after accusing Donald Trump of "declaring war".
The dictatorship's foreign minister yesterday claimed Pyongyang could target US jets flying outside North Korean airspace after President Donald Trump threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea.
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South Korea's National Intelligence Service said that while Pyongyang did not appear to have picked up the presence of the US B-1B
Lancer warplanes over the weekend, it had since bolstered its coastal defences.
Lee Cheol-Woo, the chief of the National Assembly's intelligence committee, said: "North Korea relocated its warplanes and strengthened defences along the east coast."
Meanwhile, the White House has blasted North Korea's "absurd" claims that the US has "declared war" on Kim Jong-un's rogue nation.
US spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: "We have not declared war against North Korea and frankly the suggestion of that is absurd."
Speaking outside his New York hotel yesterday, North Korea's Ri Yong-ho said: "Trump claimed our leadership would not be around much longer. He declared a war on our country.
"All the member states and the whole world should clearly remember it was the United States that first declared war on our country."
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He added: "Since the United States declared war on our country, we will have every right to take counter-measures including the right to shoot down US strategic bombers even when they are not yet inside the airspace border of country."
Ri referred to Trump's recent tweet that said: "Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!"
The North Korean diplomat responded: "The question of who will be around much longer will be answered then."
In his first address to the General Assembly, Trump last week threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea if it challenged America or its allies and derided leader Kim Jong-un as a "Little Rocket Man" who was "on a suicide mission."
In his brief address to reporters before heading to the airport, Ri said the international community had hoped the "war of words between the DPRK and the United States not turn into real actions."
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The North Korean nuclear crisis has dominated this year's gathering of world leaders at the UN amid fears that the heated rhetoric could accidentally trigger a war.
North Korea in recent weeks detonated its sixth nuclear bomb and has test-fired intercontinental missiles - saying it needs to defend itself against hostility from the United States and its allies.
During his address to the General Assembly on Saturday, Ri launched a personal attack on Trump, calling him a "mentally deranged person full of megalomania".
Just hours before Ri took the UN podium, US bombers flew off the east coast of North Korea, the furthest north of the demilitarised zone that any US aircraft has flown this century.
The Pentagon said the mission was a "demonstration of US resolve and a clear message that the president has many military options to defeat any threat.";
Trump's threat to destroy North Korea made "our rockets' visit to the entire US mainland all the more inevitable," Ri said on Saturday.
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