North Korea issued a statement in the name of the Chosun Peoples’ Army Supreme Command today, the third anniversary of the Cheonan sinking, putting all the country’s artillery and rocket forces on high alert.
“From this very moment, the Supreme Command of the Chosun People’s Army is placing all field artillery units on No.1 Combat Alert, including strategic rocket units and long-range artillery units assigned to strike U.S. imperialist aggressor bases on the U.S. mainland and on Hawaii and Guam and other operational zones in the Pacific, as well as all enemy targets in South Chosun and its vicinity,” it declared.
The decision was connected in the statement, released via Chosun Central News Agency, to recent moves by the United States and South Korea, notably the use of nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bombers in joint exercises and “once again forcibly [linking] the Cheonan sinking case to us and [shifting] the blame for the Yonpyeong Island artillery battle, just like the traitor Lee Myung Bak did.”
The statement also threatened South Korea with “physical action” and said that the South should “be mindful that everything will be reduced to ashes and flames the moment the first attack is unleashed,” before adding also, “We call upon the progressive people of the world who oppose war and love peace to turn out as one for the struggle against the criminal U.S.’ highhanded and authoritarian practices.”
