SEOUL -- The United States and South Korea were on high alert for a North Korean missile launch on Thursday as the hermit kingdom turned its attention to celebrating its ruling Kim dynasty and appeared to tone down rhetoric of impending war.

Despite threats it will attack U.S. bases and the South in response to any hostile acts, North Korea started to welcome a stream of visitors for Monday's birthday celebrations of its founding father, Kim Il Sung.

North Korea has stationed as many as five medium-range missiles on its east coast, according to defense assessments made by Washington and Seoul, possibly in readiness for a test launch that would demonstrate its ability to hit U.S. bases on Guam.

Most observers say Pyongyang has no intention of igniting a conflict that could bring its own destruction but warn of the risks of miscalculation on the highly militarized Korean peninsula.

In London, G8 foreign ministers condemned North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology "in the strongest possible terms" in an agreed statement.

There did not appear to be any signs of panic in Seoul, the South Korean capital, and financial markets appeared to shrug off the risk of conflict with stocks posting a third day of gains.

Taiwan appeared to become the first country to warn its citizens against travelling to South Korea after a warning from Pyongyang that foreigners should leave, but hotels were reporting brisk business.

Pyongyang issued a statement that appeared to be tinged with regret over the closure of the joint Kaesong industrial zone that was shuttered when it ordered its workers out this week, terming the North-South Korean venture "the pinnacle of General Kim Jong Il's limitless love for his people and brothers".

The statement on the country's KCNA news agency blamed South Korean President Park Geun-hye for bringing the money-spinning venture to "the brink of shutting down."

Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung's son, ruled North Korea until his death in December 2011. He was succeeded by Kim Jong Un, the third of his line to preside over one of the world's poorest and most heavily militarized countries.

Since taking office, the 30-year-old has staged two long-range rocket launches and a nuclear weapons test. The nuclear test in February triggered U.N. sanctions that Pyongyang has termed a hostile act and a precursor to invasion.

For over a month, Pyongyang has issued an almost daily series of threats to the United States and South Korea, most recently warning foreigners to leave the South due to an impending "thermonuclear" war.

Slideshow: North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un

The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.

Launch slideshow

Apart from the swipe at South Korea's new president, verbal threats appeared to fall off as KCNA listed arrivals for the upcoming birthday celebrations, naming an eclectic mix ranging from Chinese businessmen to Cold War-era enthusiasts of its socialist monarchy and official ideology of "Juche," or self-reliance.

Reinforcing the rule of the Kim dynasty and the legitimacy of the latest Kim to hold power in Pyongyang is a key tenet of North Korea's ideology.

It was the first anniversary on Thursday of Kim's official ascent to power, although he became de-facto leader immediately after his father's death.

The North's rhetoric has pushed the United States, the guarantor of South Korea's security, to move more military assets into the region in response to the rising threat levels.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned on Wednesday that the North was "skating very close to a dangerous line" with its threats and provocations, and said the United States, currently involved in military exercises with South Korea, was prepared to respond to any moves by Pyongyang.

"We have every capacity to deal with any action that North Korea would take, to protect this country and the interests of this country and our allies," Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon.

China, the North's only major diplomatic ally, has watched the situation evolving on its doorstep with concern.

"China respects North Korea, but it also holds the responsibility of preserving peace in Northeast Asia," the Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party's People's Daily, said in an editorial.

"Pyongyang should drop its illusions that it can make the world stay silent over its desire for nuclear arms through its hard-line stance and deceptions. We believe the North still has a chance and we regret that it has become mired in this crisis. We hope the crisis is only temporary."

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Full North Korea coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 11, 2013 3:45 AM EDT

U.S. defense officials are "highly confident" that North Korea is planning the imminent launch of a medium-range missile, echoing warnings from South Korea that the probability of Pyongyang carrying out its threat is "very high."

Pentagon officials say they believe the rogue communist state is preparing to fire one or more Musadan missiles from its east coast.

The North has been threatening the United States and its "puppet" South Korea almost daily in recent weeks, and the Commander of U.S. Pacific Command told Congress on Tuesday that he could not recollect a more tense time in the region since the end of the Korean War.

Slideshow: North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un

The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.

Launch slideshow

World leaders have shown alarm at the prospects of a conflict.

"According to intelligence obtained by our side and the U.S., the possibility of a missile launch by North Korea is very high,” South Korea’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told a parliamentary hearing in Seoul, according to Reuters.

Musudan missiles could be launched "at any time from now,” he said.

U.S. defense chiefs have echoed that belief, acknowledging that North Korea has placed a Musadan missile -- which has a range of roughly 1,800 to 2,100 miles, with a minimum range of about 400 miles -- on its east coast.

On Wednesday Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the U.S. is "fully prepared to deal with any contingency" or provocation that North Korea may take, but added that the U.S. hopes the rhetoric will be "ratcheted down."

Speaking at the Pentagon budget rollout briefing, Hagel said that the U.S., the UN, and U.S. allies have made clear to North Korea that Kim Jung Un is "skating very close to a dangerous line," and that his actions and words are not helping to "diffuse the combustible situation."

Navy Adm. Sam Locklear told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the U.S. is ready to respond to a North Korean missile launch or other threat.

"I am satisfied that we are ready today, yes," Locklear said.

Asked specifically whether U.S. forces can intercept a missile from North Korea, Locklear said: "I believe we have a credible ability to defend the homeland, to defend Hawaii, defend Guam, to defend our forward-deployed forces and defend our allies."

He went on to say that the U.S. was in a position to intercept a missile even if one were launched imminently.

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities in the northeastern city of Dandong told tour agencies to halt overland tourism into North Korea, local travel agents said Wednesday.

"All (tourist) travel to North Korea has been stopped from today, and I've no idea when it will restart," a travel agent in Dandong told Reuters.

And despite the taunts from North Korea, which include a warning for foreigners to leave the South, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said no new security warnings were being issued to Americans in South Korea or those planning to travel there.

"There's no specific information to suggest imminent threat to U.S. citizens or facilities in the Republic of Korea,” he added. “So the U.S. Embassy has not changed its security posture. We have not recommended that U.S. citizens who reside in or plan to visit the Republic of Korea take special security precautions at this time."

Amid the regional tension, South Korea blamed Pyongyang for a cyberattack that shut down tens of thousands of computers and servers at banks last month.

Investigators detected similarities between the March cyberattack and past hacking attributed to the North Korean spy agency, including the recycling of 30 previously used malware programs — out of a total of 76 used in the attack, said Chun Kil-soo, an official at South Korea's Internet security agency.

NBC News' Jim Maceda and Jeff Black contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Wed Apr 10, 2013 7:08 PM EDT

A U.S. military pilot was killed when his F-16 fighter jet crashed while on a night flight over mountainous terrain in Afghanistan, officials said Thursday.

There was no indication of enemy fire in the area at the time of the Wednesday’s crash, in the east of the country.

“While the cause of the crash is under investigation, initial reporting indicates there was no insurgent activity in the area at the time of the crash,” an official with the U.S.-led international coalition, ISAF, said in a statement.

While there have been F-16 accidents and even one deadly crash recently - one crashed into the Adriatic earlier this year- such an incident is very rare in Afghanistan, where helicopters are more at risk.

Meanwhile, officials in the country’s Ghazni province said 6 people were killed, including four local police force members, by a NATO airstrike on Wednesday evening.

The Afghan Local Police (ALP) were attacked while patrolling in the village of Sulaimanzai, in the district of Deh Yak.

North Korea is moving a medium-range missile to a site in the east of the country, a U.S. intelligence official said Thursday as tensions with the nuclear-armed state continued to escalate.

The official declined to say where the Musudan missile was headed, but the North has used a site near the Russian border on the coast for its missile tests in the past.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told lawmakers Thursday that the missile had "considerable range" but not enough to hit the U.S. mainland, according to The Associated Press.

The news came hours after North Korea's military warned that it had been authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons -- the latest in a string of war cries against America in recent weeks.

"The moment of explosion is approaching fast,” the military statement said.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula rose in December when the North test-fired a rocket and increased again when it tested a nuclear bomb in February.

Russia joined the ranks of countries voicing concern at the escalating crisis, saying the North's disregard for United Nations’ restrictions was unacceptable.

The U.S. is sending an advanced anti-ballistic missile system to Guam to protect American military sites, officials said Wednesday.

The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system is expected to arrive at the U.S. territory in the Pacific within two weeks.

'Real and clear danger'
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the North’s provocations were "a real and clear danger and threat" to U.S. interests and stressed that Washington was taking them seriously.

"We are doing everything we can ... to defuse that situation on the peninsula," Hagel said after a speech Wednesday at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.

"I hope the North will ratchet this very dangerous rhetoric down," he said, adding that there is a pathway to peace but only if Pyongyang decides to be "a responsible member of the world community."

On Thursday, North Korea warned its military had been authorized to carry out "cutting-edge, smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear strikes to protect itself against the United States.

"The moment of explosion is approaching fast. No one can say a war will break out in Korea or not and whether it will break out today or tomorrow," read the statement of an unnamed military spokesman.

The statement, which was carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), informed the White House and the Pentagon that "the merciless operation of its revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified."

It also made reference to U.S. jet sorties over the Korean Peninsula, which Pentagon officials have said are part of routine, joint military drills with South Korea.

"The U.S. high-handed hostile policy toward the DPRK aimed to encroach upon its sovereignty and the dignity of its supreme leadership and bring down its social system is being implemented through actual military actions without hesitation," the North’s statement read.

Meanwhile, a former U.N. official who visited North Korea last year reported that officials there said they could restart the Yongbyon reactor in three months. That is significantly quicker than many U.S. nuclear experts believe a restart would take.

U.S. officials said they did not believe the operation would be a huge engineering challenge.

A restart would, however, be significant, as it would give North Korea the capability to make weapons-grade plutonium again. The reactor was shut down in 2007.

"North Korea's assertion that it intends to bring Yongbyon back online can't be easily written off as an insurmountable hurdle," one U.S. official said.

The Associated Press and NBC News' Marc Smith, Alastair Jamieson, Andrea Mitchell and Becky Bratu contributed to this report.

Related:

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This story was originally published on Thu Apr 4, 2013 4:17 AM EDT

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

A V-22 Osprey lands at the Pentagon following a meeting between U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Japanese Minister of Defense Satoshi Morimoto August 3, 2012 in Arlington, Virginia.

Highlighting the continuing fallout from the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on an American consulate in Libya that took the lives of four Americans, defense officials told NBC News on Wednesday that the U.S. Marine Corps is on the verge of announcing a new group tasked with crisis response in north Africa and eastern Europe.

The group, which will be known as the Marine Air-Ground Task Force, will likely be based at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, Italy.  The team will be capable of rapid deployment for responding to security threats throughout the region — including a U.S. embassy under attack.

Orders for the new Marine unit will likely go to the secretary of defense for approval late next week. The task force will have around 1,000 Marines and a variety of aircraft, including a half-dozen Ospreys — a airplane that can take off vertically like a helicopter but once airborne is capable of high-speed flight.

If approved, the land-based task force will deploy from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina early this spring.

The announcement of the new Marine group comes just weeks after Republicans in Congress hounded former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over why the diplomatic mission in Libya was not better protected the night of the deadly attack that took the life of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Hours before the attack, Stevens sent a cable to the State Department warning of deteriorating security conditions. Yet, during hearings on Capitol Hill, Clinton said the warning never came to her attention because the State Department receives more than one million cables each year.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel could be the one to approve the Marine Air-Ground Task Force — if he is confirmed as Defense Secretary when Congress returns from recess. Senate Republicans blocked a vote to approve his nomination last week. 

Kristina Young / Handout / EPA

The USS Harry S. Truman at an undisclosed location in the Atlantic Ocean in December 2012.

Published 6:30 p.m. ET: Budget constraints are prompting the U.S. Navy to cut back the number of aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf region from two to one, the latest example of how contentious fiscal battles in Washington are impacting the U.S. military.

According to Defense Department officials, the USS Harry S. Truman, which was set to leave for the Persian Gulf region on Friday, will now remain stateside, based in Norfolk, Virginia. 

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the change to the department’s “two-carrier policy” in the Persian Gulf region early Wednesday.

The U.S. has steadily kept two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf for much of the last two years. In 2010, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates issued a directive to keep two in the area given the volatility of the region.

The cutback is largely a result of automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, passed by Congress during the summer of 2011. Congress has failed to pass a budget for the fiscal year, and has instead opted on passing legislation that will keep spending at the same level as last year. But that means the Pentagon has been operating with less money and is unsure of what the future holds for its bottom line.

Under sequestration, the Navy would lose $4 billion over the next six months, the last half of fiscal year 2013. The Navy was already $4.6 billion in the hole for this year because the continuing resolution for 2013 was budgeted at 2012 rates.

Navy officials say the Defense Department ordered members of their branch and all services to “prepare for sequestration,” even though it’s not yet clear the automatic budgets cuts will kick in next month. 

“We cut back to one carrier in the Gulf region to save money now, or wait until sequestration and be forced to cut back to zero carriers,” a senior defense official told NBC News.

It’s not certain whether the Defense Department or the White House would permit a zero carrier presence in the Persian Gulf, no matter what the budget constraints, given rising tensions over Iran. The Truman would still conduct exercises off the US East Coast and would be “surge ready” in the event of an emergency or disaster.

A statement from Pentagon Press Secretary George Little assured that the United States will “maintain a robust presence” in the area, but cited the pending sequestration cuts as the reason the Navy sent Panetta the request.

“This prudent decision enables the U.S. Navy to maintain these ships to deploy on short notice in the event they are needed to respond to national security contingencies,” read the statement.

Revelation of the cutbacks comes the same day as news that Panetta is recommending military pay increases be limited to one percent in 2014. Uniformed military will still get a raise, but it will be much smaller “to reflect the difficult budget decisions” facing the department, a defense official told NBC News.

At a speech Wednesday, the outgoing secretary of defense warned that the budget battles in Washington are putting America at risk.  

“The Department of Defense and other agencies across government have been living under a serious shadow -- the shadow of sequestration ... Today, with another trigger for sequestration approaching on March 1st, the Department of Defense is facing the most serious readiness crisis in over a decade,” he said to a crowd at Georgetown University.

“Make no mistake, if these cuts happen there will be a serious disruption in defense programs and a sharp decline in military readiness,” Panetta said in his speech Wednesday.

“We have begun an all-out effort to plan for how to operate under such a scenario, but it is already clear that no good options exist.”

On Tuesday, President Obama called on Congress to pass “a small package of spending cuts and tax reforms” to avoid the automated cuts set to kick in at the beginning of next month.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Kelly Ayotte – who have toured the country warning that sequestration cuts could put U.S. national defense at risk – responded on Wednesday by introducing a bill that would avoid cuts by slashing the federal workforce by 10 percent. 

Additional reporting from Courtney Kube

WASHINGTON -- A nuclear-powered American attack submarine hit a fishing trawler after it passed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf on Thursday, a Navy official said.

No one was injured in the incident, which occurred at 5 a.m. local time (9 p.m. ET Wednesday), but the top of the submarine's periscope was shorn off and the sub was forced to use a second periscope, the official said.

The reactor on the nuclear-powered USS Jacksonville was not affected. "There was no damage to the propulsion plant systems and there is no concern regarding watertight integrity," the Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said in a statement.

As for the trawler, it may not have even realized it hit the submarine and did not appear to suffer any damage.

The vessel "continued on a consistent course and speed offering no indication of distress or acknowledgment of a collision," the Fifth Fleet said in a statement.

A Navy investigation is underway.

In the past, Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz over its quarrel with United States about its nuclear ambitions.

The U.S. says it keeps a naval presence in the region to maintain security.

Reuters contributed to this report. 

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A U.S. civilian working for the military was killed inside Kabul’s police headquarters when a policewoman opened fire in apparent “insider” attack, officials told NBC News on Monday.

The man, a member of the International Security Assistance Forces and a logistics adviser to the Kabul police, was severely wounded and died on Monday in the office of the local police chief, according to Mohammad Zahir, head of the criminal investigation department.

Zahir described the incident as an “insider attack” in which Afghan forces turn their weapons on Western military they are supposed to be working with. 

What's leading Afghan troops to turn on coalition forces?

ISAF confirmed to NBC News the victim was one of its civilian employees.

However, a spokesman for the NATO forces in Afghanistan described the victim to Reuters as "a U.S. police adviser".

No further details were immediately available.

Earlier this year, U.S. military officials briefly suspended the training of Afghan Local Police (ALP) in the wake of a deadly series of insider killings, also known as ‘green on blue’ attacks.

In a separate incident, an ISAF member died following an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, according to a statement released to NBC News. 

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Darren Whiteside / Reuters

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man watches as a truck transports Iron Dome anti-missiles batteries in the southern city of Ashdod, November 17.

JERUSALEM - Israel's Iron Dome interceptions of rockets fired from Gaza during eight days of Gaza fighting cost $25 million to $30 million, the government said on Thursday, arguing the U.S.-backed system was well worth the money.

"Were Iron Dome traded on the (Tel Aviv) stock exchange or Nasdaq, it would have multiplied its share value several times over," Civil Defense Minister Avi Dichter told Israel Radio in an interview where he outlined the system's outlay.

Using radar-guided interceptor missiles, Israel's five truck-towed Iron Dome batteries shot down 421 of some 1,500 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip between November 14 and Wednesday's Egyptian-brokered truce, the military said.

How Israel's 'Iron Dome' intercepts incoming rockets

It put Iron Dome's success rate at 90 percent. To lower costs, the system engages only rockets that threaten populated areas, though it often fires two interceptor missiles at once.

Rockets killed 5 people in Israel and wounded dozens during the conflict, police said. Three died in coastal Ashdod on a day when Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd, Iron Dome's state-owned manufacturer, said the system had suffered a malfunction.

Israel says it needs 13 batteries for satisfactory nationwide Defense. A Defense industry source put the unit cost for Israel at around $50 million.

The focus of Israel's aerial assault on Gaza were the stockpiles and launch silos of rockets imported or improvised by Hamas and other factions. Gaza medical officials said 162 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them civilians.

The most potent of those rockets were Iranian-designed Fajr-5s with 75 km (46 mile) ranges and 175 kg (385 lb) warheads, though Hamas also said it used a Gaza-made variant, "Qassam M-75".

Iran denies supplying arms to the Palestinians. But the Iranian Young Journalists Club website on Wednesday quoted the commander of the Islamic republic's Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, saying the corps had "put the technology of Fajr-5 missiles at their (Gazans') disposal and right now a good number of these have been made and are available to them".

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PORTLAND, Ore. -- A jury on Friday ordered an American military contractor to pay $85 million after finding it guilty of negligence for illnesses suffered by a dozen Oregon soldiers who guarded an oilfield water plant during the Iraq War.

After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated for just two days before reaching a decision against the contractor, Kellogg Brown and Root.

Each Army National Guardsman was awarded $850,000 in non-economic damages and another $6.25 million in punitive damages for "reckless and outrageous indifference" to their health in the trial in U.S. District Court in Portland. 

Guardsman Rocky Bixby, the soldier whose name appeared on the suit, said the verdict should reflect a punishment for the company's neglect of U.S. soldiers.

"Justice was definitely served for the 12 of us," Bixby said, adding that two of his children were about to enter the military. "It wasn't about the money, it was about them never doing this again to another soldier."  

The suit was the first concerning soldiers' exposure to a toxin at a water plant in southern Iraq. The soldiers said they suffer from respiratory ailments after their exposure to sodium dichromate, and they fear that a carcinogen the toxin contains, hexavalent chromium, could cause cancer later in life.

Another suit from Oregon Guardsmen is on hold while the Portland trial plays out. There are also suits pending in Texas involving soldiers from Texas, Indiana and West Virginia.

Pre-existing conditions?
KBR was found guilty of negligence but not a secondary claim of fraud. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Papak acknowledged before the trial began that, whatever the verdict, the losing side was likely to appeal it.

Any appeal must first wait for Papak to formally enter the judgment.

The company will appeal the verdict, said KBR attorney Geoffrey Harrison in a statement issued late Friday afternoon. Harrison said the verdict "bears no rational relationship to the evidence."

"KBR did safe, professional, and exceptional work in Iraq under difficult circumstances," Harrison said in the statement, and multiple U.S. Army officers testified under oath that KBR communicated openly and honestly about the potential health risks.

"We believe the facts and law ultimately will provide vindication."

KBR witnesses testified that the soldiers' maladies were a result of the desert air and pre-existing conditions. Even if they were exposed to sodium dichromate, KBR witnesses argued, the soldiers weren't around enough of it, for long enough, to cause serious health problems.

The contractor's defense ultimately rested on the fact that they informed the U.S. Army of the risks of exposure to sodium dichromate.

KBR was tasked with reconstructing the decrepit, scavenged plant just after the March 2003 invasion while National Guardsmen defended the area. Bags of unguarded sodium dichromate — a corrosive substance used to keep pipes at the water plant free of rust — were ripped open, allowing the substance to spread across the plant an into the air.

Read more US news on NBCNews.com

Attorneys for the 12 Oregon National Guardsmen focused on the months of April, May and June 2003, alleging KBR knew about the presence of sodium dichromate and took no action.

One of the soldiers' key witnesses, a doctor, testified that hexavalent chromium caused a change to soldiers' genes, leaving them more susceptible to cancer. KBR's attorneys challenged that diagnosis, saying the soldiers' witness was the only physician in the U.S. prepared to make such a diagnosis.

Concern over role of contractors
Plaintiff Jason Arnold said he understands that contractors are a necessity for often-specialized tasks, but he hopes the verdict forces the U.S. military to reexamine its relationship with the private defense industry.

"For a corporation to come in and have this much disregard for the health and well-being of men that are shedding blood, sweat and tears for this country," Arnold said, "for them to come in and to say that we mean less than their profit, is wrong."

During the Iraq war, KBR was the engineering and construction arm of Halliburton, the biggest U.S. contractor during the conflict. KBR split from Halliburton in April 2007.

Read more World news on NBCNews.com

KBR has faced lawsuits before related to its work in Iraq. One of the more prominent cases, involving a soldier who was electrocuted in his barracks shower at an Army base, was dismissed.

A second case is still in Maryland federal court, in which former KBR employees and others who worked on Army bases in Iraq and Afghanistan allege KBR allowed them to be exposed to toxic smoke from garbage disposal "burn pits."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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