North Korea's Kim supervises "drone attack" drill

(Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un supervised a drone attack on a simulated South Korean target on Wednesday, Pyongyang's KCNA news agency reported, and the armed forces shot down a target mimicking a cruise missile.

North Korea has stepped up its military exercises in response to what it regards as "hostile" joint drills by South Korea and the United States after Pyongyang was sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council for a nuclear test in February.

It is not known if North Korea possesses drones, although a report on South Korea's Yonhap news agency last year said that it had obtained 1970s-era U.S. target drones from Syria to develop into attack drones.

"The (drone) planes were assigned the flight route and time with the targets in South Korea in mind, Kim Jong-un said, adding with great satisfaction that they were proved to be able to mount (a) super-precision attack on any enemy targets," KCNA reported.

It is extremely rare for KCNA to specify the day on which Kim attended a drill. It also said that a rocket defense unit had successfully shot down a target that mimicked an "enemy" Tomahawk cruise missile.

North Korea has said it has abrogated an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War and threatened a nuclear attack on the United States.

Although North Korea currently lacks the technology to carry out such an attack, the U.S. said it would deploy anti-missile batteries in Alaska to counter any threat.

The KCNA report said that Kim, 30, the third of his line to rule North Korea, would give orders to destroy military installations in any war zone and also U.S. bases in the Pacific if the North was attacked.

source -- http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/20/us-korea-north-drones-idUSBRE92J0JI20130320