North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has overseen a special forces commando operation, state media said Thursday, as tensions soar with Washington over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.

President Donald Trump has sent a naval “armada” to the Korean peninsula in a show of force, accompanied by a warning that Washington is ready to take on North Korea alone if necessary.

The North has since said it is ready for “war”, with the US, while speculation is mounting that it might conduct a nuclear or missile test to mark the 105th birthday anniversary of founder Kim Il-Sung on Saturday.

The reclusive state has long been on a quest to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead and has so far staged five atomic tests, two of them last year.

On Thursday, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim watched from an observation post as special forces dropped from light transport planes “like hail” and “mercilessly blew up enemy targets”.

With a broad smile on his face, Kim praised his troops for their precision, saying “the bullets seemed to have their own eyes”, KCNA said, without identifying when the operation was held.

The Rodong Sinmun the official mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party carried several photos from the contest including one of Kim watching the troops parachuting down from jets into an open field.

Another showed him grinning from ear-to-ear as he walked by cheering soldiers.

“The contest proved once again that our Korean People’s Army, will show a real taste of gunshot and the real taste of war to the reckless invaders,” KCNA said.

China the North’s sole major ally has urged the US president to take a peaceful approach to resolving the North Korean tensions.

Sabre-rattling between Washington and Pyongyang has unnerved China, which is losing patience with the North but whose priority remains preventing any instability on its doorstep.

Seoul and Washington are currently conducting joint military drills, an annual exercise which is seen by the North as a practice for war.

Washington: Top US specialists have now communicated worry over Pakistan's choice to give capital punishment to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav as they cautioned that Islamabad needs to send a "solid message" to India against  isolating it on the world stage.

Jadhav, 46, was granted capital punishment by military Field General Court Martial under the armed force represent his affirmed inclusion in fear based oppression and secret activities. Capital punishment was affirmed by Army boss Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.

"Aside from the gross abnormalities in the Jadhav circumstance, for example, the absence of consular get to and the mystery encompassing the unexpected court-military, what struck me the most is the complexity between the speed of Jadhav's trial set against the unlimited delays for that of the Mumbai aggressors," Alyssa Ayres, a previous senior State Department official in its South and Central Asia Bureau said.

"The last case, by complexity, has been in a consistent condition of prolongation for almost nine years," Ayres told news office PTI.

She is as of now senior individual for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, a top American research organization.

Bharat Gopalaswamy, chief of South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-DC based top US think-tank, trusts that the confirmation justifying Jadhav's conviction "is fairly shaky" and the story by the Pakistani experts "don't make any sense".

Without outfitting additional confirmation, this conviction the way things are, "is by all accounts politically inspired" so as to counter India's forceful strategy against Pakistan in battling psychological oppression, he said.

"This entire story is covered in riddle and vulnerability, yet it appears to be certain that Pakistan needs to send an exceptionally solid message to India, regardless of whether to caution New Delhi against intruding in Pakistan or to push bigly against India's endeavors to seclude Pakistan on the world stage," said Michael Kugelman, agent chief and senior partner for South Asia at the prestigious Woodrow Wilson Center.

"In the meantime, given the amount India will need to guarantee that Jadhav isn't executed, Pakistan now has a vast negotiating tool available to its. Pakistan might need to utilize Jadhav as a trump card to get some kind of significant concession from India," Kugelman said.

"Most importantly India-Pakistan relations are in a coma. We can kiss farewell any prompt prospects for continuing discourse, however that wasn't an extremely solid plausibility even before the declaration about Jadhav's capital punishment. Eventually, India and Pakistan confront some extremely dull and hazardous days ahead," he said.

As indicated by Sameer Lalwani, senior partner and delegate chief for Stimson's South Asia program, said the choice and timing of Jadhav's execution sentence "seems baffling" in light of the fact that from numerous points of view it doesn't appear to work to Pakistan's greatest advantage.

"In the event that Jadhav represented a risk and Pakistan needed to send an obstacle flag to potential saboteurs of CPEC and Gwadar, they could have executed him months back after his knowledge esteem had been depleted," Lalwani said.

"On the off chance that Pakistan needed to endeavor Jadhav's catch for political purposes by displaying confirmation of Indian sub regular hostility, Pakistan still presently can't seem to persuade the worldwide group and an execution raises doubts," Lalwani said.

"At long last, if the Indians think that much about Jadhav, Pakistan could have utilized him as a negotiating tool. Maybe the sentence is an opening haggling gambit all things considered executing Jadhav may not procure a lot of an obstruction motion for Pakistan while dispossessing discretionary or exchange esteem," he said.

Both the State Department and the White House declined to remark on the sentencing of Jadhav.

"We have seen these reports. We allude you to the legislatures of India and Pakistan for additional data," a State Department representative said.

With PTI inputs

After India, US specialists question Kulbhushan Jadhav's sentencing, call Pakistan's turn 'politically spurred'