NORTH Korea said today it is considering strikes near United States strategic military installations in Guam with its intermediate-range ballistic missiles, the Korean Central News Agency reported.

The threat came hours after US President Donald Trump threatened Pyongyang with “fire and fury” over its missile programme and days after the United Nations Security Council levied new sanctions on North Korea over its growing nuclear arsenal.

Pyongyang said it was “now carefully examining the operational plan for making an enveloping fire at the areas around Guam with medium- to long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12,” said the report.

The plan would be finalised “and will be put into practice in a multi-concurrent and consecutive way any moment once Kim Jong-Un, supreme commander of the nuclear force of the DPRK, makes a decision”.

The threat came after Trump issued an apocalyptic warning, saying North Korea faced “fire and fury” over its missile programme, after US media reported Pyongyang had successfully miniaturised a nuclear warhead.

Trump’s warning followed a Washington Post report that quoted a Defence Intelligence Agency analysis as saying officials thought North Korea now had “nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery”, including in its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

The progress suggests North Korea is further along the path to having a deployable nuclear missile than had previously been acknowledged.

Experts had, until last month, said it would take another two or three years for North Korea to develop a nuclear-tipped ICBM.

But, that calculus suddenly changed after Pyongyang last month tested two ICBMs, the first time Kim had demonstrated such a capability.

The remarks mark a sharp rise in rhetoric from the US. Previous administration comments have focused on finding non-military solutions.

North Korea has vowed that tough new UN sanctions agreed over the weekend would not stop it from developing its nuclear arsenal, rejecting talks and angrily threatening retaliation against the US. – AFP, August 9, 2017.