NORTH KOREA:North Korea celebrated with a grand parade yesterday the 75th birthday of its "invincible" army, which experts say is capable of dealing a quick and devastating blow but is hollow at the core.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reviewed the parade of military hardware and goose-stepping soldiers through central Pyongyang, waving to the enthusiastically cheering crowds from a balcony, North Korea's KCNA news agency said.
"Columns of rocket units also went past the tribune of honour, demonstrating the invincible might of the KPA [ Korean People's Army] equipped with modern offensive and defensive means," KCNA said.
It was not clear if those units included the Taepodong 2 rocket, which defence analysts say can reach parts of the United States.
"Our military and people need to join forces, holding big faith in great leader Kim Jong-il," KPA chief of staff Kim Kyok-sik, standing by Kim Jong-il, said in a statement broadcast on state television.
The KPA dates back to 1932, when it organised resistance movements against the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula, which ended after the second World War.
With nearly 1.2 million soldiers, the secretive communist state today has one of the largest standing forces on the planet. But the crippled economy has left the military short of food for its soldiers as well as lacking fuel and parts for its tanks, planes and ships.
"North Korea can provoke a war and has the military power to cause initial damage, but does not have the ability to carry out and win the war," said Baek Seung-joo, a military expert at South's Korea Institute for Defence Analyses.
South Korea's defence ministry said the North had amassed more than 13,000 pieces of artillery and multiple rocket launchers, many of them aimed at Seoul.
Jane's International Defence Review estimates if North Korea launched an all-out barrage, it could achieve an initial fire rate of 300,000 to 500,000 shells an hour into the Seoul area, home to half the country's 49 million people.
Forces from the US, which deploys about 30,000 troops to support South Korea's 670,000-strong military, have been poised for decades to deliver a quick counter-strike.
Proliferation experts do not believe North Korea, which conducted its first nuclear test in October, has the ability yet to miniaturise a nuclear warhead to mount on one of its missiles.
The average North Korean soldier lives in squalid conditions that reflect the poverty of the country, but may have a few more perks than the average worker. - (Reuters)