DHAKA: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has urged his army to prepare for war with the United States and its allies, state media said on Saturday, as Pyongyang ramps up the rhetoric ahead of US-South Korea military drills.

Kim’s comments came after South Korea and the United States on Friday conducted a joint naval drill involving 10 South Korean warships and a US Aegis destroyer, ahead of the launch of large-scale military exercises that have enraged the North.

‘The prevailing situation where a great war for national reunification is at hand requires all the KPA (Korean People's Army) units to become (elite) Guard Units fully prepared for war politically and ideologically, in military technique and materially,’ he was quoted by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) as saying, reports The Straits Times.

Kim called on the military to train hard in order ‘to tear to pieces the Stars and Stripes’, in comments made while opening a new hall at the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang, KCNA said.

BDST: 1404 HRS, FEB 28, 2015