Washington (AFP) - US bombers and fighter escorts flew off the coast of North Korea Saturday in a show of force against its nuclear weapons program, escalating already sky-high tensions.
The hermit state's foreign minister, meanwhile, assailed US President Donald Trump at the United Nations, deriding him as a "mentally deranged" leader whose threats had increased the chances of military confrontation.
Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un have exchanged increasingly bellicose rhetoric in recent days, as international alarm mounts over Pyongyang's weapons ambitions -- including a hint this week that the country is considering detonating an H-bomb over the Pacific.
US bombers have carried out similar flights before, as the United States and the international community struggle to rein in North Korea's weapons programs.
But in a new stage for such show of force operations, the Pentagon stressed this was the furthest north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas that any US fighter or bomber has flown off North Korea's coast in this century.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-bombers-fly-off-east-coast-north-korea-185154410.html
