''Shooting Our Satellite For Peaceful Purposes Will Precisely Mean A War'' Korea Puts Troops on Alert, Warns of War Danger

North Korea put its troops on alert and cut the last hot line to Seoul on Monday as the American and South Korean militaries began joint maneuvers. The communist regime warned that even the slightest provocation could trigger war.
The North stressed that provocation would include any attempt to interfere with its impending launch of a satellite into orbit. U.S. and Japanese officials suspect the launch is a cover for a test of a long-range attack missile and have suggested they might move to intercept the rocket.

''Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war,'' North Korea's military threatened in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. Any interception attempt will draw ''a just, retaliatory strike,'' it said. Meaning it would attack the United States, Japan and South Korea.

North Korea says it plans to send a satellite into orbit, but neighboring governments believe it will be testing its Taepodong-2 missile, which theoretically can reach as far as Hawaii and Alaska.

The North has been on a steady retreat from reconciliation since President Lee Myung-bak took office in the South a year ago. After Lee said the North must continue dismantling its nuclear program if it wants aid, Pyongyang cut ties, suspended joint projects and stepped up its belligerence rhetoric.

''The danger of a military conflict is further increasing than ever before on the Korean Peninsula because of the saber rattling which involves armed forces huge enough to fight a war,'' the North's news agency warned as Pyongyang put its armed forces on standby for combat.

Allied commanders say the exercises are nothing more than the annual drills the two nations have held for years, while the North has been condemning them as a rehearsal for invasion.

Analysts say North Korea's heated words are designed to grab President Barack Obama's attention. With South Korea cutting off aid, the impoverished North is angling for a diplomatic coup of establishing direct ties with the U.S., analysts say.

For weeks, the North has said it is forging ahead with plans to send a communications satellite into space -- a launch that U.S. and Japanese officials say would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution banning the North from testing ballistic missiles. That decree came after the North test-fired a long-range missile and conducted an underground nuclear weapon test in 2006.

Analysts say the launch could occur late this month or in early April.


North and South Korea technically remain in a state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are massed on each side of the DMZ.

The United States, which has about 28,000 military personnel in South Korea, routinely holds joint military exercises with the South.

Last week, the North threatened danger to South Korean passenger planes flying near its airspace if the maneuvers went ahead, and several airlines rerouted their flights as a precaution.