US bombers stage N Korea show of force
US bombers flew off the east coast of North Korea yesterday in a show of force designed to project American military power in the face of Pyongyang's weapons programmes, escalating already sky-high tensions.
The flight came after days of increasingly bellicose rhetoric between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un's regime, as international alarm mounts over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
US bombers have carried out similar show of force flights as the United States and the international community struggle to rein in North Korea's weapons programmes.
But this was the furthest north of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) any US fighter or bomber aircraft has flown off North Korea's coast in this century, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said.
"This mission is a demonstration of US resolve and a clear message that the president has many military options to defeat any threat," White said.
"We are prepared to use the full range of military capabilities to defend the US homeland and our allies."
The Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers used yesterday are based in Guam, and were accompanied by F-15C Eagle fighter escorts from Okinawa, Japan, White said.
A shallow 3.5-magnitude earthquake that hit North Korea near its nuclear test site yesterday was likely an aftershock from the hermit state's latest nuclear test on September 3, a nuclear test ban watchdog and other experts said.
The bomber flight and quake came at the end of a week that saw a blistering war of words between Kim and Trump, with the US leader using his maiden speech at the United Nations General Assembly to warn that Washington would "totally destroy" the North if America or its allies were threatened.
The North, which says it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself against the threat of a US invasion, responded on Friday with a rare personal rebuke from Kim, who called Trump "mentally deranged" and threatened the "highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history."
'KINDERGARTEN FIGHT'
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described the rhetoric between leaders of the United States and North Korea as a "kindergarten fight between children" and urged calm.
"We have to calm down the hot heads and understand that we do need pauses, that we do need some contacts," Lavrov told a news conference at the United Nations where he was attending the annual General Assembly debate.
A shallow 3.5-magnitude earthquake hit North Korea near the country's nuclear test site yesterday, US seismologists said, in what Chinese experts said was a "suspected explosion", but Seoul deemed a "natural earthquake".
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake struck around 20 kilometres (12 miles) away from the North's nuclear test site, where earlier this month Pyongyang detonated its sixth and largest device, which it claimed to be a hydrogen bomb capable of being launched onto a missile.
"This event occurred in the area of the previous North Korean Nuclear tests. We cannot conclusively confirm at this time the nature (natural or human-made) of the event. The depth is poorly constrained and has been held to 5 km by the seismologist," USGS said in a statement.
Regional experts differed on their analysis of the tremor, with the China Earthquake Network Centre (CENC) service calling it a "suspected explosion" while Seoul's Korea Meteorological Agency (KMA) judged it a "natural quake".
The North's last test, on September 3, was the country's most powerful detonation, triggering a much stronger 6.3-magnitude quake that was felt across the border in China.
The test prompted global condemnation, leading the United Nations Security Council to unanimously adopt new sanctions that include restrictions on oil shipments.
A UN-backed monitoring group said analysts were investigating yesterday's quake.
The strength of the quake was much lower than the tremors registered during any of North Korea's nuclear tests, including its first detonation in 2006, which triggered a 4.1-magnitude quake.
Washington announced tougher restrictions Friday aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programme, building on tough new UN sanctions aimed at choking Pyongyang of cash.
Russia and China have both appealed for an end to the escalating rhetoric between Washington and Pyongyang.
But on the fringes of the UN meeting this week, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho upped the tensions further, telling reporters Pyongyang might now consider detonating a hydrogen bomb outside its territory.
Monitoring groups estimate that the nuclear test conducted in North Korea earlier this month had a yield of 250 kilotons, which is 16 times the size of the US bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
Hydrogen bombs, or H-bombs, are thermonuclear weapons far more powerful than ordinary fission-based atomic bombs, and use a nuclear blast to generate the intense temperatures required for fusion to take place.
Meanwhile, the North Korea's foreign minister assailed US Donald Trump at the United Nations yesterday, deriding him as a "mentally deranged" leader whose threats had increased the chances of military confrontation.
Ri Yong-ho told the general assembly that Trump's vow to "totally destroy" his country if necessary had made "our rockets' visit to the entire US mainland all the more inevitable."
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