PYONGYANG, August 28. /ITAR-TASS/. Leader of North Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un has guided the Korean People’s Army (KPA) paratroopers’ exercise, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Thursday.

According to KCNA, Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army Kim Jong Un, first secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and first chairman of the National Defense Commission of the DPRK, guided the actual parachuting and striking drill of paratrooper units of the KPA. “He expressed great satisfaction” with their skill and instructed them to take measures to boost the combat capability of the country’s armed forces.

According to KCNA, he stressed the “need to prepare all service personnel as ‘a-match-for-a-hundred’ fighters who are always ready” for combat.

The North Korean leader was accompanied by director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean People’s Army Hwang Pyong So, Chief of the KPA General Staff Ri Yong Gil and other military officials. The KCNA report did not identify the exercise area.

According to experts, North Korea has demonstrated its airborne forces’ capability in response to the Ulji Freedom Guardian (UFG) joint US - South Korean manoeuvres, involving 50,000 South Korean and 30,000 American troops, redeployed to South Korea from the US continental part and from US military bases abroad. Pyongyang has said this demonstration of force is “a rehearsal for invasion of DPRK.”

At present, 28,500 American troops are stationed in the south of the Korean Peninsula.