US and South Korean troops staged a river-crossing drill today near the world's last Cold War frontier amid signs North Korea was preparing to conduct another missile test.
Hundreds of soldiers, backed by tanks and armored vehicles, marched through a smoke screen to cross a temporary bridge across the Imjin River, which flows along the border.
Two days of joint operations by 5,000 US and South Korean troops began yesterday.
It comes amid heightened vigilance against North Korea, which closed waters off its east coast from Saturday to Tuesday in possible preparations for a second anti-ship cruise missile test. Short-range missile tests do not violate international treaties.
The North surprised the world by firing a ballistic missile over Japan in 1998.
A new test could set the stage for volatile aerial confrontation between the Cold War foes as US intelligence is watching closely for signs of reactivation of a plutonium processing plant at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex.
Washington and Pyongyang have been locked in a tense stand-off since the crisis erupted in October when North Korea allegedly admitted to US officials that it had kept up a secret nuclear program in breach of a 1994 accord.
The crisis escalated on March 2nd when four North Korean fighters armed with heat-seeking missiles surprised a US RC-135S surveillance plane, flying within 50 feet of it and chasing it for 22 minutes.
The United States has deployed long-range bombers to the island of Guam in the western Pacific as a deterrent to any aggression by North Korea.
On Sunday, Rodong Sinmun, the North's ruling Workers Party newspaper, condemned the exercises as preparations for an invasion. "The US seeks to indiscriminately destroy the 'enemy' military bases and communications control facilities, manpower and strategic targets through its large-scale intensive preemptive air strikes," it said.
It warned North Korean troops were ready to "cope with an all-out war with an all-out war."
US President George W. Bush, preoccupied with Iraq, says he seeks a diplomatic solution to the growing nuclear crisis, but has not ruled out military action as a last resort.
US and South Korean officials believe North Korea has embarked on a campaign of risky military stunts in order to pressure Washington into giving it economic aid and security assurances. North Korea has called for direct talks with Washington to end the stand-off.
AFP