The North Korean army threatened Friday to carry out a "merciless military strike" against South Korea next week, in a serious escalation of cross-border tensions

The North Korean army threatened Friday to carry out a "merciless military strike" against South Korea next week, in a serious escalation of cross-border tensions.
  
The Korean People's Army (KPA) vowed to initiate the strike if a group of North Korean defectors now living in the South went ahead with plans to scatter propaganda leaflets next Monday from balloons floated over the border.
  
"The moment a minor movement for the scattering is captured... a merciless military strike by the Western Front will be put into practice without warning," the KPA said in a statement carried on the official Korean Central News Agency.
  
Residents in and around the area where the activists plan to launch their balloons should "evacuate in anticipation of possible damage", the statement said. "The surrounding area will become targets of direct firing of the KPA," the statement said, adding: "The KPA never makes empty talk."