Kim warns troops to prepare for ‘sacred war’ during US-South Korea exercises

August 18, 2012 – NORTH KOREA – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told his troops to be vigilant during upcoming training exercises between South Korea and the United States, saying they should be ready to lead a “sacred war,” state media reported Saturday. Kim’s comments came during a visit on Mu Island with troops who participated in the 2010 shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, an attack that North Korea at the time said South Korea provoked by holding war games off their shared coast. “He ordered the service persons of the detachment to be vigilant against every move of the enemy and not to miss their gold chance to deal at once deadly counter blows at the enemy, if even a single shell is dropped on the waters or in the area where the sovereignty of (North Korea) is exercised,” the state-run KCNA news agency reported. The warning followed an announcement by the United States and South Korea that their joint “Ulchi Freedom Guardian” training exercises would begin Monday and conclude by August 31. North Korea was informed of the dates of the exercises by the U.N. armistice commission. –CNN