N Korea says rocket targeted at US

The country's powerful national defence commission poured scorn on Tuesday's UN security council resolution condemning the launch last month of a long-range rocket, and the decision to expand sanctions against the already impoverished state.

The North insists the launch was part of its peaceful space programme, but the US and its allies believe the purpose was to test its ballistic missile technology.

On Thursday, the regime appeared to confirm those suspicions when it said its rocket programme had a second, military purpose: to target and strike the US.

The commission, North Korea's most powerful military body, said the rocket launches would continue and warned the country would conduct a third, "high-level" nuclear test.

"We are not disguising the fact that the various satellites and long-range rockets we will launch, as well as the high-level nuclear test we will carry out, are targeted at the United States, the arch-enemy of the Korean people," the commission said in a statement carried by the official Central Korean News Agency, Kazinform cites the Guardian.

"Settling accounts with the US needs to be done with force, not with words."

The statement did not say when the test, which would be the first under the current leader, Kim Jong-un, would take place. Analysts said it could happen in mid-February, just before South Korea's new president, Park Geun-hye, is sworn into office and the North marks the birthday of its previous leader, Kim Jong-il.

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