South Korea, Wars | featured news

The American military commander in the region is staying there instead of returning to Washington--taking no chances as North Korea continues to make threats.

Outsiders might hear the opening notes of a war in the deluge of threats and provocations from North Korea, but to South Koreans it is a familiar drumbeat. Separated from the North by a heavily fortified border for decades, they have for the most part lived with tough talk from Pyongyang all their lives. In annual defense drills, war alarms ring in their ears.

The US will defend itself and its "treaty ally" South Korea in the face of North Korean threats, Secretary of State John Kerry says.

North Korea said on Saturday it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea in a continuing escalation of tough rhetoric against Seoul and Washington after coming under international sanctions for its nuclear test.

North Korea put its rocket units on standby Friday to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after repeated threats and one day after two American stealth bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula in a military exercise. A U.S. official warned that the isolated communist state is “not a paper tiger” and its reaction should not be dismissed as “pure bluster.”

North Korean state media said Monday that Pyongyang had carried through with a threat to cancel the 60-year-old armistice that ended the Korean War, as it and South Korea staged dueling war games amid threatening rhetoric that has risen to the highest level since North Korea rained artillery shells on a South Korean island in 2010.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatened to launch a powerful retaliatory strike against South Korea if provoked, state media said Sunday, a day before the start of annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that Pyongyang calls an invasion rehearsal.

North Korea will fire across a land border with South Korea if Seoul continues its anti-North psychological campaign, the North's official media said on Sunday ahead of an annual, joint military drill between the United States and South Korea.

South Korea's president vowed a relentless retaliation against North Korea if provoked again, saying Monday he is not afraid of a war with the communist North.

A destroyer prowled the sea and fighter jets screamed across the skies Tuesday as South Korea braced for possible North Korean surprise attacks a day after launching provocative artillery drills on an island the North shelled last month.