North Korea wants a missile that can hit the USA, and it might come armed with this deadly bacteria

In this image made from video of a news bulletin aired by North Korean government broadcaster KRT on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017, leader Kim Jong Un looks up at the sky at what is said to have been a missile launch on Aug. 29, 2017, at an undisclosed location in North Korea. The language from North Korea on Wednesday is as familiar as it is chilling, a declaration to the world to expect more missile tests. But there are important clues about North Korea's ambitious push to send its missiles farther into the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to make them an accepted part of life in the region, as leader Kim Jong Un expands the weapons program he sees as his country's best chance of survival against encircling enemies. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this photo. (KRT via AP Video)

A troubling report from Japan on North Korean missile pursuits and plans says that Kim Jong-un does not just want an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting America; he wants missiles equipped with anthrax.

Videos by Rare

RELATED: Trump Administration to accuse North Korea of WannaCry cyberattack

A correspondent for the Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun, citing an intelligence source in South Korea, reported Wednesday that North Korea is exploring if its missiles can carry the deadly bacteria anthrax.

The report, which noted that the U.S. is aware that North Korea has been seeking “nuclear, chemical and biological weapons,” said that Kim Jong-un’s regime wants to know if anthrax can survive the heat of an inter-continental missile trip.

“The source in South Korea said Pyongyang is conducting heat and pressure resistance tests to see whether anthrax germs can survive at temperatures of 7,000 degrees or higher, the level an ICBM encounters when it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere,” Asahi reported.

One interesting nugget in the report on top of this is that the U.S. and its ally South Korea appear to have known about this since 2004, as the nations have vaccinated soldiers against anthrax since then.

North Korea has in recent days threatened that if United States continues to conduct joint military operations with South Korea “nuclear war [may break out] at any moment,” Sky News reported. 

Quoting an unnamed spokesman from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (CPRC and DPRK, respectively), state-run North Korean source KCNA referred to the U.S. and South Korean military might as “puppet forces” and warned that the planned Dec. 4. aerial drill is a “war rehearsal [that] is just a grave military provocation.”

The article notably said President Donald Trump is “running wild,” “insane” and “bluffing” when condemning inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests.

The U.S. and South Korea proceeded with those drills anyway.

https://twitter.com/OliverHotham/status/938209212328378368

The North Korean ICBM test that attracted the most attention in November was dubbed Hwasong 15 (“Mars”), and the missile flew as high as 2,800 miles and traveled for 50 minutes, according to ABC News.

The most recent North Korean offense that’s made headlines, however, was that the rogue nation was behind the WannaCry cyberattack, which affected hundreds of thousands of computers last summer.

The Trump administration vowed Tuesday that North Korea would be held accountable for a May cyberattack that affected 150 countries, but it didn’t say how, highlighting the difficulty of punishing a pariah nation already sanctioned to the hilt for its nuclear weapons program.

RELATED: Dennis Rodman admits his pal Kim Jong Un is a “madman”

The WannaCry ransomware attack infected computers worldwide and crippled parts of Britain’s National Health Service. It was the highest-profile cyberattack North Korea has been blamed for since the 2014 hack of Sony Pictures after it produced “The Interview,” a satirical movie imagining a CIA plot to kill leader Kim Jong Un.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

What do you think?

Ben Carson brings prayer back to the White House as the GOP tax bill heads to the president’s desk

A small plane carrying 3 men suddenly crashed in a Knoxville neighborhood