North Korea's Doomsday Cult: Millions Enlist for 'Sacred War'

North Korean state media said on Wednesday around 1.4 million young people had applied to join or return to the army this week, blaming Seoul for a provocative drone incursion that had brought the "tense situation to the brink of war".

The fiery rhetoric comes after North Korea last week accused Seoul of sending drones over Pyongyang that scattered a "huge number" of anti-North leaflets.

The North then blew up inter-Korean roads and rail lines on its side of the border on Tuesday, and warned that the South would "pay a dear price".

The young people, including students and youth league officials who had signed petitions to join the army, were determined to fight in a "sacred war of destroying the enemy with the arms of the revolution," the official KCNA news agency said.

The fiery rhetoric comes after North Korea last week accused Seoul of sending drones over Pyongyang that scattered a "huge number" of anti-North leaflets.

The North then blew up inter-Korean roads and rail lines on its side of the border on Tuesday, and warned that the South would "pay a dear price".The young people, including students and youth league officials who had signed petitions to join the army, were determined to fight in a "sacred war of destroying the enemy with the arms of the revolution," the official KCNA news agency said.reviously made similar claims about young people scrambling to enlist at a time of heightened tensions, though such statements from the isolated state are difficult to verify.