North Korea lashed out Thursday after South Korean fighter jets dropped bombs and tanks fired artillery as the military staged its largest air and ground firing drills of the year in a show of force a month after the North’s deadly shelling of a front-line island. 

The North said it was ready to launch a “sacred war,” accusing South Korea of exacerbating tensions on the peninsula. The KXNT Morning News spoke with correspondent Don Kirk in Seoul for the latest developments.