NK threatens to retaliate against South Korean reserve forces using its leaders' photos as shooting targets

ATTN: ADDS South's military officials' quotes in paras 9-11) SEOUL, June 3 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's military threated on Friday an "overall" military retaliation against South Korea, whose reserve forces units have used photos of its leaders as targets during firing drills. "From now on, the units of the three services of the Korea People's Army (KPA) and the Worker-Peasant Red Guards will launch practical and overall retaliatory military actions to wipe out the group of traitors at a stroke," said a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army in a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Some South Korean units of reserved forces have reportedly used pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his son as shooting targets during firing drills. The spokesman demanded the Seoul government apologize for the acts, calling it a "blatant challenge" and an "unheard of politically motivated provocation." "The South Korean puppet authorities should make a formal apology to the whole nation for the hideous provocation and provide an official guarantee for thoroughly preventing its recurrence," he said. He noted that the military will escalate the practical and overall retaliatory military actions until the South takes actions to punish those involved in the drills. "The South Korean puppet authorities should take measure for immediately meting out a stern punishment to the prime movers who committed the above-said most hideous crimes against the nation," he said. "It is the final conclusion drawn by the DPRK that there is no need to sit face to face with the Lee group of traitors hell-bent on the confrontation with fellow countrymen and that it is necessary to settle accounts with it only by force of arms," he said, hinting that this shooting target incident is apparently related to the North's recent claims that the South has secretly proposed to hold inter-Korean summit talks. "We found no unusual movement in the North's military but we are carefully watching the North's threatening remarks," said a South Korean military official. Another military official said the South Korean military has strengthened South Korea-U.S. joint intelligence surveillance and countermeasures against the North's possible provocations, saying, "We will not tolerate the North's reckless provocations." Meanwhile, the South Korean Defense Ministry has ordered some of its military units to stop using photos of North Korean leaders as targets during firing drills, sources said. Inter-Korean relations have been tense since the South Korean warship Cheonan went down in March last year in a torpedo attack blamed on the North and the island of Yeonpyeong was bombarded by the North Korean military in November. The total death toll from the two attacks reached 50. The two countries remain technically in a state of war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.