North Korea warning: Kim ‘scrambling to launch biggest EVER missile’ as World War 3 threat

Kim Jong-un’s tyrannical regime have steadily ramped up missile testing in recent years as the young despot attempts to make North Korea a fully fledged nuclear state.

Now a North Korean citizen who fled the clutches of Kim has claimed Pyongyang is working to launch a vast new missile to mark 70 years since the founding of the nation. 

The defector claimed Kim demanded his military henchman prepare the rocket – dubbed the Unha-4 – for launch on September 9, in a stunning act of defiance against the sanctions levelled on the state by US President Donald Trump.

The missile is a development on the previously tested Unha-3, which evoked the ire of the UN Security Council after bursting through the stratosphere to place a mysterious satellite into orbit in February 2016.

Kim’s regime claims it has a sovereign right to expand their space programme – but UN officials said the Unha-3 was actually a modified long-range missile and was used as a test to expand the military capability of Kim’s intercontinental arsenal.

Experts believe the new and improved Unha-4 could be used to test the ability of Kim’s ICBMs to fire a nuclear payload on the ruler’s enemies.

While the regime’s latest test missile the Hwasong-15 proved North Korea could strike almost anywhere on the planet, it is not yet known if the regime has the technology needed to arm their missiles with their newly developed nuclear warheads. 

It comes as former US ambassador John Bolton warned Donald Trump will inflict military force on North Korea if Kim does not abandon his nuclear weapons programme.

In his New Year address Kim warned a “nuclear button is always on my desk” as he ramped up his game of brinkmanship with the US.

He said: “The entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapons, and a nuclear button is always on my desk. This is reality, not a threat.”

But while Mr Bolton dismissed the speech from Kim as “propaganda”, he claimed military force remains an option to stop the rogue nation’s nuclear ambitions. 

Speaking on Fox News, the Former US ambassador to the UN said: “This is his regular New Year’s speech and obviously he has seen the conversation in the United States that looks at possible preemptive military force. 

“It’s not the most attractive option but it is an option that we definitely have to use if they don’t give up their nuclear weapons programme. 

“So we need a very careful calibration, exactly what the North’s capabilities are.”