North Korean Video Shows Soldiers Shooting Targets Of US Troops

The Hermit Kingdom has released new propaganda footage showing North Korean soldiers firing at targets fashioned after American soldiers, according to Sky News.

It is unclear when or exactly where the footage was shot, but Sky News reports the video first appeared on state TV. The video was uploaded Monday to Liveleak.

The footage comes mere days after North Korea said it had "entered a state of war" with South Korea. A senior U.S. official dismissed the provocation as just more bluster.

In the short clip, North Korean soldiers are seen shooting AK-47 rifles and pistols in a field, as a target with a cartoon-like representation of an American soldier is blasted away.

Anti-American sentiment runs high in the North, with state-run media often calling the U.S. "imperialist aggressors," and the South a "puppet regime."

The latest video is another in a long history of propaganda from the regime. On Mar. 24, the North released a four-minute clip showing paratroopers jumping in and overtaking the South's capital city of Seoul.

"The crack stormtroops will occupy Seoul and other cities and take 150,000 U.S. citizens as hostages," the narrator says in the video, as The Telegraph reported.

As is often the case with North Korean propaganda, the videos are mainly for domestic consumption, with Kim Jong-un demonstrating readiness for battle, inciting nationalism, and presenting himself as a forceful leader of his people.

Estimates of North Korean army personnel range from 700,000 to more than one million. The South has similar numbers, along with nearly 30,000 U.S. troops backing them up.