North Korea is threatening war against the US using an especially hostile nuclear rhetoric

North Korea is once again angrily threatening war against the US and South Korea.

In a particularly hostile bit of rhetoric broadcast via the country’s official news agency, a spokesman for the National Defense Committee hinted at the country’s willingness to use nuclear weapons, CNN reported. “The army and people of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] are no longer what they used to be in the past, when they had to counter the US nukes with rifles,” the NDC spokesman said, adding that the country is an “invincible power equipped with both the latest offensive and defensive means unknown to the world, including nuclear deterrence.”

US intelligence suggests that a threat against the mainland is especially troubling. In April, Admiral Bill Gortney, the general in charge of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said, “Our assessment is that they have the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 [missile] and shoot it at the homeland.” (Though that doesn’t necessarily mean that they could effectively detonate a warhead.)

Read More: North Korea is threatening war against the US using an especially hostile nuclear rhetoric – Quartz.