US B-1B bombers fly over South Korea in show of force as North threatens missile strike on Guam

Two US strategic bombers flew over South Korea in an apparent show of force against North Korea, a South Korean military official said Wednesday.

The B-1B Lancers were deployed in the sky over the Korean Peninsula Tuesday as part of a regular combined exercise with the South’s fighter jets, the official said.

The supersonic aircraft, which are capable of carrying nuclear bombs, took off from an airbase in the Pacific island of Guam.

They were earlier joined by two Japanese F-2 jet fighters when flying near Japan’s southern Kyushu island.

North Korea said on Wednesday it is considering a strike on Guam, hours after US President Donald trump said any threat from Pyongyang would be met with “fire and fury.”

Andersen Air Force Base on Guam is where the US keeps its B1-B bombers deployed to the Asia Pacific.

The US military has flown the bombers several times this year to send a warning to North Korea, which has conducted a series of banned ballistic missile tests.

A spokesman for the Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army said such flyovers by the bombers “get on the nerves” of North Korea and “threaten and blackmail it through their frequent visits to the sky above,” according to a statement carried Wednesday by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Kyodo and Reuters