North Korean state media released a video depicting a missile attack on the United States Capitol and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier on Wednesday.
Government mouthpiece Arirang-Meari released the video, entitled “Within the Scope of Destruction”, in an apparent response to recent U.S. military maneuvers near the Korean peninsula.
A commentary in Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), also reported on Thursday that the “White House and the Blue House are in the crosshairs of the gunsight of the Paektusan (Mt. Paektu) revolutionary powerful army.”
The video begins with a recording of a speech delivered by Choe Ryong Hae, a vice-chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK, at last week’s Day of the Sun military parade.
“If the U.S. makes a reckless provocation against us, our revolutionary armed forces will immediately hit a merciless blow,” Choe says. “We will respond to an all-out war with an all-out war and a nuclear war with our style of a nuclear attack.”
The video features the Hwasong-7 Scud-ER, which was test launched last September, and the Pukguksong-2 (KN-15), which was launched for the first time in early February. The Scud-ER and the Pukguksong-2 are short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles, respectively.
 
The video also showed the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) and its carrier strike group in the crosshairs of a telescopic sight, with a subtitle saying “foolish and fat animals crawling and becoming a huge target.”
After depicting what appears to be a joint amphibious training drill between the U.S. and Republic of Korea (ROK), exploding smoke shells are seen with subtitles reading: “Poor tiger moth which doesn’t know that they will die. Crawl into here if you can.”
The media also shows the launch of an anti-ship cruise missile, which was covered by state media in February 2015, and what appeared to be the four Scud-ER missiles launched in early March hitting the USS Carl Vinson.
“The nuclear power of the East is envied by the world. Asia’s leading country in rockets will knock you down if you take one step towards invasion and provocation,” the subtitles read.
The video then shows footage of the Pukguksong-2 firing from a launch tube – footage first aired by Korean Central Television (KCTV) in early February. Multiple Pukguksong-2 missiles then head toward the U.S. mainland and hit the U.S. Capitol in a computer graphic simulation.
The final subtitle read: “the final collapse will begin.”

The provocative simulation of a North Korean attack on the U.S. mainland came the day that Commander of U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) Harry Harris called the DPRK “the most immediate threat to the security of the U.S. and our allies in the Indo-Asia-Pacific,” in a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services.
Speaking at a hearing on “Military Assessment of the Security Challenges in the Indo-Asia-Pacific Region,” Harris said there is a “mismatch” between the rhetoric of North Korea and its capabilities, saying that it “has threatened by name Manhattan, Washington, Colorado, Australia, Hawaii.”
But the commander said that North Korea “moves closer to [its] stated goal of a pre-emptive nuclear strike capability against American cities” e...