NKorea issues trademark fiery rhetoric over US-SKorea drills

SEOUL - North Korea's military on Tuesday greeted the start of annual US-South Korean military drills with its standard fiery threats, vowing "merciless retaliation" for exercises Pyongyang claims are an invasion rehearsal.

North Korea routinely issues such warlike rhetoric or conducts weapons tests to respond to the US-South Korean exercises.

Tuesday's threat came as top US generals, including Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of US forces in the Pacific, visited South Korea. The US generals were to travel to the site of a contentious US missile-defense system in South Korea later Tuesday.