North Korea: Trump considers pre-emptive missile strike

THE US is drawing up a hit-list of North Korea’s underground nuclear weapon sites as President­ Donald Trump considers a pre-emptive military strike against the rogue nation.

• Trump’s North Korea threats are empty words, experts say

THE US is drawing up a hit-list of North Korea’s underground nuclear weapon sites as President­ Donald Trump considers a pre-emptive military strike against the rogue nation.

Australia will join the fight against North Korea if economic sanctions and diplomatic negotiations fail and tensions between Mr Trump and Kim Jong-un escalate into military conflict, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has indicated.

While the US has been successfully sabotaging North Korea’s missile program through cyber-interference, defence sources said the rogue nation appeared to have strengthened security protections — preventing similar tactics being used to halt development of its new longer-ranged missiles.

Mr Turnbull, who was locked in high-level security briefings at foreign intelligence agency the Australian Signals Directorate late yesterday, said the ANZUS Treaty means if America is attacked, Australia will come to its aid.

“We are joined at the hip,” he said of the US alliance.

“Economic sanctions … is the preferred way to deal with it but of course if North Korea decides to carry out some of its violent threats, then obviously terrible consequences will follow­. There is no point, you know, ducking that inevitable consequence.”

Senior defence expert Peter Jennings said the Pentagon was drawing up a hit-list in case China cannot be persuaded to put more pressure on North Korea.

“Absolutely, they will certainly be planning that in the Pentagon and drawing up target lists of missile launch sites and nuclear weapon development sites which are dispersed throughout the country, not just in one or two locations,” the Australian Strategic Policy Institute executive director said.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne and Chief of the Defence Force Mark Binskin arrive for a confidential briefing on North Korea in Canberra yesterday.

US President Donald Trump speaks during a security briefing in New Jersey this week. Picture: AFP

“We shouldn’t wait for the crisis, we should be now actively taking with the Americans about what a planned strike might look like.”

Mr Jennings said a comprehensive strike against North Korea could be “bigger than anything we’ve seen since the shock and awe campaign” at the start of the Iraq war.

Mr Jennings said the US had seemingly been able to damage North Korea’s intermediate-range missiles through cyber interference.

“The Americans seem to have had some successes with cyber-technology in the past,” he said, referring to missiles blowing up on launch late last year. However, defence sources said the US’s ability to sabotage North Korea’s longer-range missiles had faltered, possibly because of greater security.

The Turnbull government has rejected calls from both former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott for a missile defence system.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten yesterday said: “What we all need to do is be concentrating on encouraging North Korea to de-escalate.”