The North Korean capital Pyongyang braced Saturday for what was predicted to be one of the largest ceremonial displays of military strength in the nuclear-armed nation's history.
A cavalcade of tanks, armoured vehicles and assorted ballistic hardware was set to rumble through the city's Kim Il-Sung Square, with thousands of hard-marching troops for escorts, in celebration of the ruling Workers' Party's 70th birthday.
An overnight thunderstorm and heavy rains had threatened to put a dampener on the whole event, with the announcement of a formal start time for the parade being delayed until the last moment.
Taking the salute from the massed military ranks will be supreme leader Kim Jong-Un, the third generation of a family dynasty that has ruled the North with absolute authority for the past seven decades.
The scale of the parade was already apparent from satellite images taken four days before which showed a sprawling training ground in Pyongyang featuring some 800 tents, 700 trucks and 200 armoured vehicles.As with similar displays in the past, the event will be closely watched for glimpses of any new hardware that might signal a forward step in the North's military development.
When announcing plans for the "grand style" parade back in February, the ruling party's top decision-making body had stressed the importance of "cutting-edge" weaponry suitable for modern warfare.
- Nuclear capabilities -
North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests and threatened a fourth as part of a nuclear weapons and missile programme that it has pursued through a barrage of international sanctions.
There is debate among experts as to how far it has come in developing those weapons, especially the ability to shrink nuclear warheads so that they can fit on a missile.
An exhaustively-researched report published this week by the US-based Institute for Science and International Security estimated that North Korea had between 10 and 16 nuclear weapons as of the end of 2014.
The report argued it was likely the country could already build a warhead to fit atop a Nodong missile -- with a range of less than 800 miles (1,300 kilometres) -- but added that the reliability of such a weapon was open to question.
Months of planning and preparation have gone into Saturday's parade, involving a mass mobilisation of state personnel and resources to ensure its success.
The capital itself was given a comprehensive makeover -- its streets lined and decorated with giant posters, red banners and national flags, many of them displaying the numerals "10-10" in reference to the ruling party's official October 10 birthday.
The North excels at such choreographed displays of military muscle, which aim to boost pride and patriotism at home while sending a defiant message to an international community that has sought, without success, to pressure Pyongyang into abandoning its nuclear weapons ambitions.
AFP
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