Unhinged

N. Korea Threatens U.S. Over Missile System

Cuts off communications, vows punishment for American prisoners.

North Korea on Monday cut off its communications channel with U.S. diplomats and hinted at more severe treatment of the American citizens it is holding, just hours after it threatened to use “physical action” to counter a U.S. anti-missile system set to be deployed in South Korea. The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported its envoys would shut down contacts through the United Nations in New York and would impose wartime rules on the two U.S. prisoners detained in the Hermit Kingdom, as punishment for last week’s U.S. sanctions on Kim Jong Un and other top leaders. After Washington and Seoul on Friday announced that a THAAD anti-missile system would be established in response to a growing threat from the north, North Korea’s military said in a statement that it would “take a physical counter-action to thoroughly control THAAD... from the moment its location and place have been confirmed in South Korea.” It also warned that South Korea would suffer “miserable self-destruction” if it went ahead with the plans, also threatening “merciless” measures against the U.S.