ES News email The latest headlines in your inbox twice a day Monday - Friday plus breaking news updates Enter your email address Continue Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in Register with your social account or click here to log in I would like to receive lunchtime headlines Monday - Friday plus breaking news alerts, by email Update newsletter preferences

North Korea has said it has created a detailed plan to launch missile strikes on US air bases on the Pacific island of Guam.

The secretive nation announced via its strictly controlled state media that it is considering medium-to-long-range missile strikes on sites where US strategic bombers are based.

Guam was today on high alert after the threat of attacks, as islanders woke up to find themselves in the cross hairs of the rapidly escalating war of words between Washington and Pyongyang.

Two US Air Force B-1B bombers from the military base in Guam joined a 10-hour strategic bilateral mission with jets from South Korea and Japan as tensions ratcheted up with North Korea.

“How we train is how we fight and the more we interface with our allies, the better prepared we are to fight tonight,” one of the pilots with the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron B-1 was quoted as saying.

The bombers flew in the vicinity of Kyushu, Japan, the East China Sea, and the Korean peninsula in a mission on Monday demonstrating the solidarity of the allies as they prepare to “defend against provocative and destabilising actions in the Pacific theatre."

About one third of the 210-square mile island is occupied by the military and 7,000 American service members and their families live on Guam. The main US hub on Guam is Andersen Air Force Base, home of the B-1 long-range bombers - and there is also a naval base.

Tensions escalated after President Donald Trump warned North Korea was to face "fire and fury." Trump also tweeted: "After many years of failure, countries are coming together to finally address the dangers posed by North Korea. We must be tough & decisive!"

North Korea is "carefully examining the operational plan for making an enveloping fire at the areas around Guam" using its domestically made medium-to-long-range Hwasong-12 missiles, according to the state's media.

Meanwhile the Governor of Guam, Eddie Calvo, told his constituents that the island was under no immediate threat.

He said: "An attack or threat to Guam is a threat or attack on the United States.

"They have said that America will be defended."

Guam's Homeland Security Adviser George Charfauros also urged calm and said defences are in place to combat the threat of missile strikes.

Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull described North Korea as reckless, provocative, dangerous and a threat to peace.

"Its conduct is illegal, it's reckless, it's provocative, it's dangerous. And it threatens the peace of the region, the peace of the world," he said.

Mr Turnbull said a conflict with North Korea would be shattering and have "catastrophic consequences".

He said the global community was united in seeking to impose the maximum economic pressure on North Korea "to bring them to their senses without conflict".

Guam is armed with the U.S. Army's missile defense system known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, the same system recently installed in South Korea.

Speaking from his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump said: "North Korea had best not make any more threats to the United States.

"They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."

The Trump administration considers North Korea to be America's greatest national security threat and tensions have steadily escalated this year.

Pyongyang responded angrily to the United Nations Security Council's adoption this weekend of new, tougher sanctions spearheaded by Washington, following ground-breaking long-range missile tests last month that showed the North could potentially reach the continental United States with its missiles.

Condemning the UN sanctions, the North warned: "We will make the US pay by a thousand-fold for all the heinous crimes it commits against the state and people of this country."

Analysts said North Korea's weapons could reach Alaska, Los Angeles or Chicago, if fired correctly.

Pyongyang is still believed to lack expertise to allow a missile to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere without burning up and another work in progress is the ability to strike targets with accuracy.

Meanwhile a nuclear expert who has repeatedly visited North Korea's nuclear facilities said he doubted the country was yet capable of attacking Guam and that the real danger was escalating rhetoric between the US and North Korea.

Siegfried Hecker, a professor at Stanford University's Centre for International Security and Co-operation, said although the North tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month, developing a nuclear warhead for such a missile was "extremely challenging and still beyond North Korea's reach".

Prof Hecker said the real threat was "stumbling into an inadvertent nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula by misunderstanding or miscalculation".