North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited military units that launched the 2010 artillery attack on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island and called on troops to be ready for a confrontation with the enemy, a media report said Friday.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) monitored in Seoul said Kim visited the front-line units on Mu and Jangjae islets in the early hours of Thursday and told soldiers to be ready to destroy enemy targets at a moment's notice if the order is given.
He also said that the Nov. 23 artillery attack annihilated efforts by the warmongers in the South to provoke the North, and claimed the event was the most satisfying engagement since the Armistice Agreement that halted the Korean War was signed.
The islets are south of North Korea's Kaemori shoreline and just a few kilometers north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) that acts as the sea demarcation line between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea. Kim had visited the garrison on Mu Islet last August.
Artillery from Mu kicked off the sudden attack against Yeonpyeong on Nov. 23, 2010 that resulted in four deaths and 16 people being wounded.
The KCNA said that Kim told soldiers to be ready to deal with reinforced South Korean military positions and be ready to strike them precisely if the need arises.
The North Korean leader, who holds the rank of marshal and supreme commander of the Korean People's Army, then claimed that the country's army, navy, air force and anti-aircraft units are ready to carry out an all-out war.
He added that if the South engages in any form of provocation in "sensitive waters" along the NLL, the North will not lose the opportunity to start a struggle to secure national unification.
The inspection of the two islets, meanwhile, is seen as a show of Pyongyang's defiance toward the latest U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolution that imposed tougher sanctions on the communist country.
The resolution that was passed Thursday in New York reflects the international community's resolve to penalize Pyongyang for conducting its third underground nuclear test on Feb. 12.
The North has been making daily threats in recent days and even threatened that it can launch preemptive nuclear strikes against the strongholds of aggressors just hours before the UNSC resolution was passed. It did not specify what would be the target of its attacks, but it has been warning it can turn Seoul and Washington into a "sea of fire" if the two countries continue to provoke Pyongyang.