North Korea On Special Alert Over Military Drill
August 16, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
The top command of North Korea’s Korean People’s Army ordered all nationals and military forces Monday to be on “special alert” over a joint U.S.-South Korean military drill that began the same day, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
The order from the Supreme Command, whose supreme commander is North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, suggests an unusually tough stance on the Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises, which run through Aug. 27.
North Korea will retaliate against any military provocation with “a merciless and prompt annihilating strike at the aggressors with all offensive and defensive means including nuclear deterrent involved,” the KPA’s top command was quoted by KCNA as saying.
Along with all military forces, the top command ordered militia groups such as the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and the Young Red Guards to “closely follow all the moves” by the U.S. and South Korean forces with “high vigilance” and “make an immediate strong attack on perpetrators of any hostile act” against North Korea.
North Korea calls the U.S.-South Korea drill a prelude to an invasion, but Washington and Seoul refute such a claim, saying it is purely defensive.
The top command urged all nationals to “bring about a new leaping forward” in North Korea’s “150-day campaign” to step up the building of a prosperous and powerful socialist nation, KCNA said.
In the campaign, which will run through Sept. 16, North Korea plans to lift the economy by developing four key sectors — power generation, coal, steel and metal, and railway transport.
N. Korea: U.S. Plotting Pre-Emptive Nuclear War
The rhetoric out of North Korea continues…
North Korea criticized the U.S. on Monday for positioning missile defense systems around Hawaii, calling the deployment part of a plot to attack the regime and saying it would bolster its nuclear arsenal in retaliation.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he ordered the deployment of a ground-based, mobile missile intercept system and radar system to Hawaii amid concerns the North may fire a long-range missile toward the islands, about 4,500 miles away.
“Through the U.S. forces’ clamorous movements, it has been brought to light that the U.S. attempt to launch a pre-emptive strike on our republic has become a brutal fact,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary.
The paper also accused the U.S. of deploying nuclear-powered aircraft and atomic-armed submarines in waters near the Korean peninsula, saying the moves prove “the U.S. pre-emptive nuclear war” on the North is imminent.
The commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, said the North will bolster its nuclear arsenal in self-defense.
The North routinely accuses the U.S. of plotting to invade the North. But the U.S., which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has said it has no such plan.
