Korea 'on brink of war' says North as guns fired

North Korea has warned that US-South Korean plans for military manoeuvres in a disputed region have put the peninsula on the brink of war.

Yesterday it appeared to launch its own artillery drills within sight of the island it showered with a deadly barrage earlier this week.

The fresh artillery blasts were especially defiant because they came as the US commander in South Korea, General Walter Sharp, toured the South Korean island to survey damage from Tuesday's hail of North Korean artillery fire that killed four people.

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None of the latest rounds hit the South's territory, and US military officials said Gen Sharp did not even hear the concussions, although residents on other parts of Yeonpyeong panicked and ran back to the air raid shelters where they huddled in terror earlier in the week as white smoke rose from North Korean territory.

Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North's strike destroyed large parts of the island, killing two civilians and two marines in a major escalation of their sporadic skirmishes along the sea border.

The attack – eight months after a torpedo sank a South Korean warship further west, killing 46 sailors – has also laid bare weaknesses in South Korea's defence 60 years after the Korean War. The skirmish forced South Korea's beleaguered defence minister to resign on Thursday.

The heightened animosity between the Koreas is taking place as the North undergoes a delicate transition of power from leader Kim Jong Il to his young, inexperienced son Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s and is expected to eventually succeed his ailing father.

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As Washington and Seoul pressed China to use its influence on Pyongyang to ease tensions amid worries of all-out war, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is en-route to South Korean waters for joint military drills starting on Sunday.

The North, which sees the drills as a major military provocation, said: "The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war."

A North Korean official boasted that Pyongyang's military "precisely aimed and hit the enemy artillery base" as punishment for South Korean military drills – a reference to Tuesday's attack – and warned of another "shower of dreadful fire", the Korean Central News Agency, the state news body, reported.

It described the drills involving South Korean forces and a US nuclear-powered supercarrier south of Tuesday's skirmish as a reckless plan and added: "Gone are the days when verbal warnings are served only."

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North Korea's army and people were "now greatly enraged" and "getting fully ready to give a shower of dreadful fire".

"Escalated confrontation would lead to a war, and he who is fond of playing with fire is bound to perish," the agency said.

On Thursday, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak ordered reinforcements for about 4,000 troops on Yeonpyeong and four other Yellow Sea islands, as well as top-level weaponry for the soldiers. He also upgraded rules of engagement that would create a new category of response when civilian areas were targeted.

The North Korean government does not recognise the maritime border drawn by the UN in 1953, and considers the waters around Yeonpyeong Island its territory.

It lies seven miles from North Korean shores and is not far from the spot where the South Korean warship was sunk in March.