North Korea beefed up its military arsenal near its border with the South last year despite a severe economic downturn, a government source in Seoul was quoted as saying Sunday.

The communist country deployed some 200 additional units of 240-mm multiple-rocket launchers along the heavily-fortified border, Yonhap news agency reported.

The 240-millimetre, which can shoot up to 22 rounds every 35 minutes and has a range of 60 kilometres (37 miles), is considered by the South's military as a "core threat" to the capital city of Seoul and populous suburbs, Yonhap said.

Seoul, about 50 kilometres south of the tense border, has a population of 10.4 million people, more than one fifth of the nation's total population.

The US has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against the North, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a ceasefire.

The source said Pyongyang also deployed 2,100 new artillery guns and 300 tanks, adding that the communist state is now known to have some 10,600 projectile weapons and 4,200 tanks.

The South's defence ministry said in a 2008 white paper that Pyongyang is armed with about 8,500 artillery guns and 3,900 tanks.

North Korea's increased military arsenal, despite its ailing economy and acute food shortage, "proves that its intention of military threat to the South remains unchanged", the source was quoted as saying.

An defence white paper to be published in early October will contain figures on the North's latest military capability, the defence ministry said.

Despite its ailing economy and severe food shortage, the North's military totals 1.2 million personnel and is one of the world's largest.

Cross-border ties has been icy since Seoul accused Pyongyang of attacking a South Korean warship in March and killing 46 sailors.

The North angrily denied the charge, further heightening tension in the relations already strained since the South's conservative government took hardline policies on Pyongyang.

But Pyongyang recently made a series of conciliatory gestures by returning the crew of a detained South Korean boat, offering to hold a new round of reunions for families separated by the peninsula's division and accepting flood aid from Seoul.

Aid groups say the North's food crisis is expected to worsen this year because of floods and a poor harvest.

But the North has stockpiled almost one million tons of rice for its military by storing rice aid from overseas for the military and releasing older rice to the people, a South Korean ruling party lawmaker said Friday.

earlier related report
N.Korea calls S.Korea's food aid meagre: state media
Seoul (AFP) Sept 19, 2010 - North Korea criticised South Korea for being tightfisted with flood aid for its neighbour, state media said Sunday, as Seoul worries the rice aid meant to help ordinary people may end up at military silos.

South Korea's Red Cross said last week it would send supplies worth 10 billion won (8.6 million dollars), including 5,000 tons of rice, to help those hit by recent floods that devastated the North's northwestern region.

Most of the aid is financed by the South's government.

But the 5,000 tons of rice is "not enough to feed North Koreans even for a day," Tongil Sinbo, Pyongyang's state-run weekly, said in an editorial.

"The South has made a huge fuss to boast it would send flood aid and rice to the North, but it turned out that they are only sending 5,000 tons of rice," said the editorial, published on the country's official website, Uriminzokkiri.

"I wonder if that will ever fill our stomach...it makes us think again about the scale of their generosity."

The North was last month hit by floods that washed away thousands of homes, roads, railways and farmland and caused an unspecified number of deaths.

Typhoon Kompasu, which hit the peninsula in early September, further hammered the impoverished country, killing dozens of people and causing heavy damage to the nation, which is vulnerable to flooding after years of deforestation.

Aid groups warned that this year's flooding would aggravate the North's chronic food shortages.

But Seoul has been cautious sending large-scale rice aid to the North amid lingering questions over whether the food may used for the North's 1.2 million military strongholds instead of civilians.

South Korea's Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek, Seoul's pointman in inter-Korea affairs, openly expressed doubts about the transparent distribution of rice aid in the North.

"I think transparency in the distribution of humanitarian food aid to North Korea has not been ensured. I'm not certain whether rice has been handed out properly," Hyun told lawmakers last week.

Friday's Munhwa Ilbo newspaper also quoted an unnamed high-ranking government official as saying that more than one million tons of rice was stored in military silos across North Korea.

Seoul used to ship 400,000 tons of rice a year plus 300,000 tons of fertiliser to its northern neighbour. The shipments ended in 2008 as relations worsened with the South's conservative government taking a hardline stance towards Pyongyang.

Relations further strained after the South cut off most inter-Korea trade in May as punishment for the North's alleged attack on a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors.

Pyongyang, which angrily denied the charge and threatened retaliation for months, recently took a series of conciliatory gestures by offering to hold a new round of reunions for families separated by the peninsula's division.

It also accepted flood aid proposal from Seoul.