Alwaght-North Korea has threatened to launch a series of retaliations on the US and South Korean intelligence agencies after an assassination attempt on its leader, Kim Jong-Un.
The country’s military will begin "a series of more powerful anti-terrorism striking actions and mercilessly destroy the terrorists”, said an English-language statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
It went on to accuse the two countries of trying to kill the country's leader with “biochemical substances” during a parade in the country's capital Pyongyang, celebrating the Day of the Sun, which commemorates the birth of North Korea's founder, Kim Il-Sung.
Pyongyang also revealed that the CIA bribed a North Korean citizen $40,000 to carry out the assassination.
Ri Byong Ho, the North Korea head of intelligence, said the suspect was a "very important person" and that "there have already been more than 80 planned terrorist attacks" that have been foiled.
In retaliation, North Korea is undertaking "counter-terrorism measures of justice," he added.
After arresting two American university instructors and laying out an elaborate, CIA-backed plot to assassinate Kim, North Korea has confirmed that it is a victim of state-sponsored terrorism.
North Korea's state-run media announced Sunday that an ethnic Korean man with US citizenship was "intercepted" two days ago by authorities for unspecified hostile acts against the country. He was identified as Kim Hak Song, an employee of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.
That came just days after the North announced the detention of an accounting instructor at the same university, Kim Sang Dok, a Christian missionary who is also a US citizen, for "acts of hostility aimed to overturn" the country.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been near boiling point following increased provocations by the US which include military drills and deployment of warships and submarines in the region.
Pyongyang insists that developing its military defenses including nuclear weapons is important to counter incessant provocations by the US including a possible nuclear aggression.
