President Donald Trump has given orders for U.S. military forces to shoot down and destroy any missile launched from North Korea and moving toward the continental United States, Hawaii, and Guam. Sources close to the president’s national security team told Newsmax the order was given to Pentagon in the wake of last month’s threat by North Korea to fire a ballistic missile aimed at Guam, a U.S. territory.
“The threat provoked the president,” one source familiar with the decision told Newsmax.
Last Sunday, North Korea detonated a thermonuclear weapon, and the communist regime claims they can fit the new device on advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles, known as ICBMs.
This week, South Korean intelligence sources said the North was moving an ICBM in an apparent preparation for another test launch over the northern Pacific and possibly Japan.
The president also is said to be considering a new “shoot down” order for any North Korean missile launched and moving toward Japan or South Korea, another national security source told Newsmax.
“This is a clear exercise of self-defense, and there’s no question we should do it,” former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Newsmax. Bolton said U.S. allies South Korea and Japan “are in danger” and said the United States must take steps to protect them under treaty obligations.
The presidential order came after a flurry of recent provocations from Pyongyang. In August, President Trump ominously warned the North Koreans that continued threats will be met with “fire and fury”.
“There is general consensus in the White House and the Pentagon that North Korea is quite close to the ‘red zone’ and that the U.S. must act soon or lose the upper hand,” one official told Newsmax.
Just days after North Korea’s nuclear test detonation, Han Tae Song, the North Korean ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told a disarmament conference the U.S. could expect more “more gift packages”, Newsmax adds.
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