Yonhap quoted the report as saying that Kim ordered rockets "to be on standby to fire so that they may strike any time the US mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in south Korea."

"Kim declared the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK would react to the US nuclear blackmail with merciless nuclear attack, and war of aggression with an all-out war of justice," the statement reads.

The announcement came the day after the US deployed nuclear-capable stealth bombers on an “extended deterrence” practice run over South Korea, which the US said was intended to demonstrate US resolve “to deter against aggression on the Korean Peninsula, and our strong commitment to the US alliance with South Korea."

Two B-2 stealth bombers, capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear weapons, left the Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and flew more than 6,500 miles (10,461 km) to the Korean Peninsula where they dropped the inert munitions on an island range facility off the western coast of South Korea, and then returned to the United States “in a single, continuous mission,” according to the statement.