Guam Homeland Security Advisor George Charfauros said that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system permanently based at Andersen Air Force Base in Yigo would protect the island in the event of a missile attack by the isolated Asian nation.
At a news conference at Adelup, Charfauros explained that with the THAAD and other missile defense systems, "there’s.00001 percent chance of that missile getting through that layer."
Eddie Calvo, governor of Guam, concurred, saying that despite recent threats from Pyongyang, "This is not the time to panic," according to Pacific Daily News. "There have been many statements out there that have been made by a very bellicose leader, but at this point there’s been no change in the security situation here on Guam."
"I’ve gotten assurances from all levels, both local command and Washington, DC, that this island will be defended," he stressed.
After US President Donald Trump threatened North Korea on Tuesday "with fire and fury … like the world has never seen," in response to their ongoing missile tests, the country’s state-run Korea Central News Agency quoted a government spokesman saying that Pyongyang was "carefully examining" a missile strike against Guam.
Such a strike will be "put into practice in a multi-current and consecutive way any moment," the statement continued, as follows the whim of leader Kim Jong-un.
Concern over weapons development by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has spiked since the country conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests last month. Kim claims the missiles have the capability of striking the US mainland.
In response to July’s tests, the UN Security Council leveled sanctions against the DPRK on Saturday, seeking to cut their $3 billion annual export revenue by a third.
Pyongyang sharply denounced the sanctions, with Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho releasing a statement at a Monday ministerial meeting in Manila that said "We will, under no circumstances, put the nukes and ballistic rockets on the negotiating table … Neither shall we flinch even an inch from the road to bolstering up the nuclear forces chosen by ourselves unless the hostile policy and nuclear threat of the US against the DPRK are fundamentally eliminated."
