North Korea ups the ante in war of words, threatens to attack US bases
March 26, 2013 -- Updated 2304 GMT (0704 HKT)
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Rare images from North Korea
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- North Korea on Tuesday threatens to attack U.S. and South Korean bases
- Pyongyang puts its troops on full alert and announces its military is ready for combat
- The threat comes amid joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises
Even by North Korean standards, the series of threats this month by leader Kim Jong Un and ensuing actions have been incredibly provocative, making the situation on the Korean Peninsula more worrisome.
Here's a look at Kim's escalating rhetoric and his country's actions since he came to power after his father's death in 2011:
March 2012
As South Korea hosts
world leaders at an international nuclear security summit in Seoul,
North Korea moves a long-range rocket toward a launch pad.
Korean War remembered
Tensions high on Korean peninsula
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Pyongyang says it plans to carry out the test in mid-April as part of a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the nation's founder.
April 2012
Defying warnings by U.S.
President Barack Obama that Kim has nothing to gain from provocations,
Pyongyang launches the rocket. It breaks apart and falls into the sea.
August 2012
Kim visits the same
military unit behind a 2010 attack on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island,
where he reminds the troops to be ready to fight a "sacred war" against
Seoul.
The North Korean leader
makes the veiled threat just ahead of an annual war games conducted on
the Korean Peninsula by the United States and South Korea.
The dictator calls the joint Seoul-Washington military exercises a "war rehearsal" to invade.
October 2012
North Korea claims to have developed missiles that can reach the U.S. mainland.
December 2012
Kim announces plans to launch another long-range rocket in a renewed effort to send a satellite into space.
Two days after the government announces the launch window is being pushed back because of technical issues, the rocket lifts off from the west coast of North Korea. Pyongyang declares the mission a success.
January 2013
North Korea announces it
is planning a new nuclear test and more long-range rocket launches, all
of which it says are part of a new phase of confrontation with the
United States.
The threats come two
days after the U.N. Security Council approves the broadening of
sanctions in response to the rocket launch in December that apparently
put a satellite in orbit.
February 2013
North Korea carries out an underground nuclear bomb test on February 12.
The test is designed "to
defend the country's security and sovereignty in the face of the
ferocious hostile act of the U.S.," the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency says at the time, referring to new U.S.-led sanctions.
"This nuclear test is
our first measure, which displayed our maximum restraint. ... If the
U.S. continues with their hostility and complicates the situation, it
would be inevitable to continuously conduct a stronger second or third
measure."
March 2013
Angered by U.N. Security Council sanctions over
its nuclear test, North Korea threatens for the first time to launch a
pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States and South Korea.
It's one of a series of provocative threats and, in some cases, actions by North Korea that begins with Pyongyang saying it is scrapping the 1953 truce
that effectively ended the Korean War. At the same time, it cuts off
its direct phone links with South Korea at Panmunjom, the abandoned
village that sits on the border between the two countries.
North Korea then doubles down on the threat,
saying it is nullifying the joint declaration on the denuclearization
of the Korean Peninsula. One of the country's top generals, according to
published reports, claims Pyongyang has nuclear-tipped intercontinental
ballistic missiles that are ready to be fired.
Although U.S. officials
don't believe North Korea is in a position to strike the United States,
the Obama administration responds to the threat by announcing plans to
deploy additional ground-based missile interceptors on the West Coast.
U.S. officials also say B-52 bombers are making flights over South Korea as part of annual, joint military exercises this month that have enraged North Korea.
Pyongyang releases a new
propaganda video that shows an imaged missile attack on U.S. government
buildings in Washington, including the White House and the Capitol. The
roughly four-minute video is posted on the YouTube channel of the North Korean government website Uriminzokkiri.
North Korea threatens Tuesday to attack U.S. and South Korea bases,
putting its troops on alert. It announces through state-run media that
the military is ready for combat. The threat follows claims that U.S.
B-52 bombers again made flights Monday over South Korea.
CNN's Elise Labott, Jethro Mullen and Brad Lendon contributed to this report.
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