WASHINGTON, April 29: North Korea is able to mount a nuclear warhead on missiles that could hit the United States, a senior US defense official said on Thursday in a startling assessment of the hardline communist state’s military capability. Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, gave the assessment while answering questions during a Congressional hearing.

Asked by Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton whether North Korea had the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device, Jacoby said: “The assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes, ma’am.”

He said that North Korea also had the ability to deploy a two-stage intercontinental missile that could successfully hit US territory.

“Assessed to be within their capacity, yes,” Jacoby told Clinton when asked if a two-stage intercontinental missile strike was “already within their operational capacity.”—AFP