North Korean troops in areas bordering the South have been put on high alert and are prepared to wipe out their South Korean counterparts, the North’s state media reported Tuesday.

The move is the latest in a series of provocative gestures by the North, which made similar threats last week and fired artillery in the direction of a South Korean vessel last Tuesday.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted North Korean military spokesperson for the Command of the Southwestern Front continued the North’s denials of responsibility for the attack, which he labeled a “poor deceptive farce.”

“Those military gangsters