Seoul: South Korea has raised its surveillance of North Korea after the reclusive state moved one or more long-range missiles in readiness for a possible launch, Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, the commander of US forces in the Pacific region, said the US military believed North Korea had moved an unspecified number of Musudan missiles to its east coast.
An Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters "our working assumption is that there are two missiles that they may be prepared to launch". That was in line with South Korean media reports.
The North has been threatening the United States and its "puppet" South Korea on an almost a daily basis in recent weeks, although the threats appear to be aimed partly at boosting internal support for young leader Kim Jong-un.
The Combined Forces Command in Seoul raised its "Watchcon 3" status, a normal defence condition, by one level in order to step up monitoring and increase the number of intelligence staff, a senior military official told Yonhap on Wednesday.
"There are clear signs that the North could simultaneously fire off Musudan, Scud and Nodong missiles," Yonhap quoted an unidentified official as saying.
Pyongyang has frequently tested short-range Scud missiles but the longer-range Musudan and Nodong missiles are an unknown quantity. The Musudan missiles are reckoned to have a range of roughly 3,000-3,500 km (1,865-2,175 miles).
The North has said it would target American bases in the Pacific, although it is not known whether the untested missiles have the range to do so.
"If the missile was in defence of the homeland, I would certainly recommend that action (of intercepting it). And if it was defence of our allies, I would recommend that action," Locklear told a Senate hearing in Washington.
Pyongyang has turned up its shrill rhetoric in recent weeks after the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions for the state's third nuclear weapons test in February 2013.
It has threatened a nuclear strike on the United States - something it does not have the capacity to carry out - and "war" with South Korea.
On Tuesday, it told foreigners in South Korea to leave the country to avoid being dragged into a "thermonuclear war". It previously warned diplomats in Pyongyang to prepare to leave.
The streets of Seoul, a city of 10 million people, bustled as normal on Wednesday morning as commuters travelled to work in sunny, spring-time weather. Foreign embassies in the capital of Asia's fourth-largest economy have played down the latest North Korean threats as rhetoric.
The North closed a money-spinning joint industrial park it operates with South Korean companies this week, putting at risk a venture that is one of its few sources of hard cash.
Analysts say the current tensions will likely last until the end of April 2013, when joint US-South Korean military drills end. The harsh rhetoric also precedes the first anniversary of Kim's formal ascent to power in Pyongyang.
The North has termed the drills "hostile" preparation for invasion by Seoul and Washington, who say the drills are regular annual exercises.
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