June 25 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea threatened an “all-out war” against the U.S. as Kim Jong Il’s regime ratcheted up its anti-American rhetoric to mark the 59th anniversary of the start of the Korean War.

More than 100,000 people rallied in Pyongyang today, state- run Korean Central News Agency said. Images on APTN television in North Korea showed thousands shouting “Let’s smash,” as a sign showed hands crushing a missile on which “U.S.” was written, the Associated Press reported.

KCNA periodically attacks the U.S., South Korea and longtime enemy Japan in its daily English-language dispatches. Today, KCNA criticized U.S. “imperialists” in at least eight news releases. The reports have become more bellicose since June 12, when the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on North Korea after it conducted a long-range missile test.

North Korea will counter those sanctions with retaliation and “all-out war with all-out war in order to protect the dignity of the nation and the sovereignty of the country,” KCNA quoted Pak Pyong Jong, first vice chairman of the Pyongyang City People’s Committee, as saying at the rally.

KCNA used the anniversary of the start of the war, which ended in 1953, to call for the U.S. to pull its forces out of South Korea. State-run newspapers today also joined in the attacks on the U.S., according to KCNA.

‘Retaliatory Blows’

“If the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppets finally take the road of an adventurous war, while going reckless, the army and people of the DPRK will deal retaliatory blows thousand times stronger than what they faced 59 years ago and wipe out the aggressors to the last man,” the Rodong Sinmun newspaper wrote. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korea’s anti-U.S. rhetoric is on the rise as the country may be preparing to fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii, Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper reported this month. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week he ordered the military to take defensive measures in case of such a launch.

“North Koreans always use this overblown rhetoric at a time when there’s tension in the relationship,” New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said in an interview on CBS’s “The Early Show” today. Richardson traveled to North Korea in 1996 to secure the release of an American arrested after swimming to North Korea.

“They’re probably going to undertake some new missile shots in the next couple of weeks,” he said.

Six-Party Talks

North Korea in April quit six-party talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear program and expelled international inspectors. The sanctions restrict financial transactions and attempt to curb the regime’s ability to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.

The UN vote followed almost three weeks of negotiations on tighter sanctions after North Korea detonated a suspected nuclear device on May 25.

U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday extended economic sanctions on North Korea by a year, saying the communist nation still poses a threat to the U.S. The sanctions had been scheduled to expire this week.

The U.S. Navy is tracking a North Korean ship, Kang Nam I, which it suspects may be carrying illicit weapons technology. The 2,000-ton cargo vessel left the port of Nampo in North Korea on June 17 and may be headed to Myanmar via Singapore, South Korea’s YTN cable news channel reported.

North Korea is also holding two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, whom it accused of illegally entering the country from China in March while reporting for San Francisco- based Current TV. They were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor on June 8.

South Korea also marked the start of the Korean War with a ceremony in Seoul attended by about 5,000 people, mostly veterans and war widows, AP said. Minister of Patriots and Veterans Affairs Kim Yang called for North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs, AP reported.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 25, 2009 14:22 EDT