North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his rocket forces were ready “to settle accounts with the US”, escalating the country’s bellicose rhetoric and responding directly to the unprecedented announcement that nuclear-capable US B-2 bombers had joined military drills with South Korea.

North Korea’s military has warned that its artillery and rocket forces are at their highest combat level in the latest threat aimed at South Korea and the United States.

NORTH KOREA, facing international censure for this week’s nuclear test, threatened yesterday to attack the South after it joined a US-led plan to check vessels suspected of carrying equipment for weapons of mass destruction.