North Korea has warned of strikes against key sites in the US in retaliation for Washington blaming Pyongyang for the recent Sony cyber attack, saying any US punishment over the incident would lead to damage “thousands of times greater”.

Late on Sunday North Korea’s National Defence Commission said President Barack Obama was “recklessly” spreading rumours that Pyongyang was behind the cyber attack. The film studio has pulled The Interview , a satirical movie depicting the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, after the hacking and subsequent threats of terrorist attacks against cinemas that screened it.

The NDC said its 1.2m-member army was ready to use all types of warfare against the US. “Our toughest counteraction will be boldly taken against the White House, the Pentagon, and the whole US mainland, the cesspool of terrorism, by far surpassing the ‘symmetric counteraction’ declared by Obama,” said the NDC statement, carried by official news agency KCNA.