Seoul: North Korean submarine is missing, reports said Saturday, as the reclusive state issued a fresh threat of retaliation against US and South Korean forces involved in joint military drills.
The unknown class of vessel had been reportedly operating off the North Korean coast earlier in the week when it disappeared.
A South Korean defence ministry told AFP Seoul was investigating the reports. Pentagon officials declined to comment on the matter.
The US military had been observing the submarine off the North's eastern coast, CNN said, citing three US officials familiar with the incident.
American spy satellites, aircraft and ships have been watching as the North Korean navy searched for the missing sub, the report added.
The US is unsure if the missing vessel is adrift or whether it has sunk, CNN reported, but officials believe it suffered a failure during an exercise.
The US Naval Institute (USNI) News said the submarine was presumed sunk.
"The speculation is that it sank", an unidentified US official was quoted as telling the USNI News.
"The North Koreans have not made an attempt to indicate there is something wrong or that they require help or some type of assistance."
The incident comes as tensions were further heightened on the Korean peninsular by a fresh threat from Pyongyang.
The official KCNA news agency, citing a statement from military chiefs, warned of a "pre-emptive retaliatory strike at the enemy groups" involved in the joint US-South Korean drill.
Pyongyang added it planned to respond to the drills with an "operation to liberate the whole of South Korea including Seoul" with an "ultra-precision blitzkrieg".
Responding to the statement, South Korea's defence ministry urged Pyongyang to stop making threats or further provocations, according to Yonhap news agency.
North Korea's navy operates a fleet of some 70 submarines, most of them being rusting diesel submarines that are capable of little more than coastal defence and limited offensive capabilities.
But the old, low-tech submarines still pose substantial threats to South Korean vessels.
In 2010, a South Korean corvette was reportedly torpedoed by a North Korean submarine near their sea border.
In August last year, Seoul said said 70 percent of the North's total submarine fleet -- or around 50 vessels - had left their bases and disappeared from South's military radar, sparking alarm.
Since the joint drills began Monday, the North has issued daily warnings and statements, talking up its nuclear strike capabilities and threatening to turn Seoul and Washington into "flames and ashes."
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has ordered further nuclear tests, state media said Friday, as military tensions surge on the Korean peninsula with South Korean and US forces engaged in large-scale joint exercises condemned by Pyongyang.
Just days after he was photographed posing in front of what state media described as a miniaturised nuclear warhead, Kim said the weapon required further testing.
Overseeing a ballistic missile launch on Thursday, Kim ordered "more nuclear explosion tests to estimate the destructive power of the newly produced nuclear warheads," the North's official KCNA news agency said.
Experts are divided as to just how far the North may have gone in shrinking warheads to a size capable of fitting on a ballistic missile — a major step forward in strike capability that would present a heightened threat to South Korea, other countries in the region and, eventually, the US mainland.
Nuclear strike drill
According to KCNA, Thursday's launch of two short-range ballistic missiles, which traversed the eastern part of the country before falling into the East Sea (Sea of Japan), was part of a nuclear strike exercise.
The aim was to simulate conditions for "exploding nuclear warheads from the preset altitude above targets in the ports under enemy control," the agency said.
Watching the exercise, Kim reiterated an earlier threat to launch an immediate nuclear attack if the "sabre-rattling" South Korea-US drills should harm "even a single tree or a blade of grass" on North Korean territory.
"I will issue a prompt order to launch attack with all military strike means," he said.
Military tensions on the divided Korean peninsula have been on the rise since the North carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, followed by a long-range rocket launch last month.
South Korea and the United States responded by scaling up their annual joint drills, which Pyongyang has always condemned as provocative rehearsals for invasion.
'Decapitation' strike
The North's anger has been fuelled this year by reports that the drills included a "decapitation strike" scenario in which the North Korean leadership and command structure is taken out at the start of any conflict.
In light of such drills, "our self-defensive countermeasures should adopt a more preemptive and offensive mode," Kim said.
The UN Security Council responded to the North's latest nuclear test and rocket launch by adopting tough, new sanctions, which Pyongyang condemned as a "gangster-like" provocation orchestrated by the United States.
Reacting to Kim's call for more nuclear tests, South Korea on Friday said the North Korean leader was being "rash" and displaying his ignorance of international opinion.
"The international community is imposing strong and comprehensive sanctions and this only goes to prove why they are necessary," said Unification Ministry Spokesperson Jeong Joon-Hee.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday voiced grave concern over the growing tensions, and urged North Korea to avoid any further "destabilising acts."
Kim, however, chose to highlight the need for a diversified nuclear strike force, capable of delivering warheads from the ground, air, sea and underwater.
The North has conducted a number of what is says were successful tests of a submarine launched ballistic missile.
Outside experts have questioned the results of those tests, suggesting Pyongyang had gone little further than a "pop-up" test from a submerged platform.
