B-1B bombers from Guam and F-15 fighter escorts from Okinawa in Japan have flown a mission in international airspace over the waters east of North Korea, the Pentagon said.
The US said it was the furthest north of the Demilitarised Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula that any American fighter or bomber has flown this century.
Defence Department spokesman Dana White said in a statement that the mission showed how seriously the US took what she called North Korea’s “reckless behaviour”.
The statement said the flights were a “demonstration of US resolve and a clear message” that President Donald Trump “has many military options to defeat any threat”.
Ms White said “we are prepared to use the full range of military capabilities to defend the US homeland and our allies”.
President Trump has threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if the United States was forced to defend itself or its allies against a North Korean attack.
That led the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, to say Mr Trump would “pay dearly” for making such a threat.
Kim’s foreign minister has said his country’s response to Mr Trump “could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific”.
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