South Korea on alert over possible provocation from North Korea

South Korean forces have been kept on alert for possible provocation from North Korea as Pyongyang marks the anniversary of Strategic Rocket Force Day. Seoul suspects Pyongyang could resort to some kind of provocative act like missile or rocket launch.

The South Korean military is gearing up in view of a higher possibility of a missile launch from the North as the founding day of the rocket force falls on the eve of US Independence Day celebrations. The North's rubber-stamp parliament, officially known as the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), had earlier declared 3 July as the country's Strategic Rocket Force Day.

"At present, there are no out of ordinary signs that the North is planning something, but South Korean forces are maintaining a high degree of vigilance," a source from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) told South Korea's Yonhap news agency. The disputed border region between the rival Koreas known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) is also been closely monitored for any movement of Pyongyang's forces.

The South Korean intelligence has said they have detected some troop movements and mobilisation of weapons in nearby islands, which are usually uninhabited.

The North has constantly been engaged in sabre-rattling for the past few months with frequent launches of missiles and rockets. Its latest launch of the medium-range Musudan missile was considered a success after four failures. The missile theoretically has a strike range of reaching up to the US territory of Guam. All these incidents have raised tensions in the Korean Peninsula sparking a war of words from both sides.