Nearly five million people in North Korea have signed up to fight after Kim Jong-Un accused Donald Trump of declaring war.
Millions of students and some 1.22 million women are among those who have reportedly put their names forward amid increasing hostility with America.
The figures, from State newspaper Rodong Sinmun, come as North Korea relocates its warplanes and bolsters air defenses along its eastern coast.
Millions of students and some 1.22 million women are among those who have reportedly put their names forward to fight in the North Korean army
Nearly five million people in North Korea have signed up to fight after Kim Jong-Un accused Donald Trump of declaring war
The move, which was reported by analysts in Seoul, puts the planes within striking distance of US bombers which have been conducting drills alongside aircraft from the South in international airspace near North Korea.
Pyongyang had previously said it has the right to shoot down American warplanes whether or not they had entered the country’s airspace.
The inflamed rhetoric came after President Trump told the UN general assembly that America would have ‘no choice but to totally destroy North Korea’ if forced to defend itself and its allies.
That threat brought an unprecedented personal response from Kim Jong-un, who called Trump a ‘mentally deranged dotard’ and raised the prospect of carrying out a hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific Ocean.
The war of words showed no sign of slowing down on Tuesday as Trump started the day by tweeting that North Korea had tortured arrested American student Otto Warmbier ‘beyond belief’.
Members of the Ministry of People’s Security during an anti-US rally in Pyongyang on September 23
Pyongyang accused the US of declaring war after Mr Trump tweeted that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ‘won’t be around much longer’
Warmbier was jailed in the hermit state in 2016 for stealing a propaganda poster while on holiday in Pyongyang, before being handed back to the US in a coma earlier this year. He died shortly afterwards.
Medical examiners have been unable to determine how he fell into the coma, but say there were no obvious signs of torture.
While Trump has repeatedly stated that a military solution is not his preferred choice, international observers and world leaders are nervous that heightened tensions could unintentionally spill over into armed conflict.
North Korea’s army includes almost one million active members, including 200,000 special forces soldiers.