U.S. Says North Korea Rhetoric a,Prelude to Attack

Escalating threats from North Korea’s communist regime are indicators of a future military attack or another nuclear test in the coming days, according to a recent U.S. intelligence assessment.

Intelligence agencies issued the assessment last week warning that threatening rhetoric from Pyongyang in response to large-scale U.S.-South Korean military exercises and new U.N. sanctions had reached the highest level in years.

The unclassified assessment circulated within government states that the intense language suggests North Korea is preparing for a surprise military strike or a demonstration of strategic capability, such as a new long-range missile test or underground nuclear blast, according to U.S. officials familiar with the report.

On Sunday, North Korean state news media warned its missiles could destroy New York City in a thermonuclear attack.

“Our hydrogen bomb is much bigger than the one developed by the Soviet Union,” the outlet DPRK Today stated.

“If this H-bomb were to be mounted on an inter-continental ballistic missile and fall on Manhattan in New York City, all the people there would be killed immediately and the city would burn down to ashes,” the report said.

Such threatening rhetoric from Pyongyang is typical of the communist regime’s propaganda. However, in the past several weeks the tone and level of threats has been unusually harsh, according to the officials, and that is increasing fears among intelligence analysts that the stepped-up threats are a prelude to military action or nuclear and long-range missile tests.

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