North Korea has recently created an army division in charge of newly developed intermediate-range missiles capable of striking U.S. forces in Japan and Guam, a South Korean news agency said Tuesday. The report came as North Korea stepped up its war rhetoric against the U.S. and South Korea after the allies started their annual drills aimed at improving their defense capabilities. The North's People's Army recently launched a division supervising operational deployment of missiles with a range of more than 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers) that it had developed in recent years, Yonhap news agency reported citing an unidentified South Korean government source. The missiles could pose a threat to U.S. forces in Japan, Guam and other Pacific areas that are to be redeployed in time of emergency on the Korean peninsula, Yonhap said. The report, however, didn't provide further details such as how many missiles the new division possesses and where they are positioned. South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday it couldn't confirm the Yonhap report. However, a ministry document published last year showed that the North deployed a new type of medium-range missile believed to be the same as one it displayed during a military parade in 2007. If confirmed, the division's launch could suggest that the North has succeeded in developing more medium-range missiles since 2007 and it needed a bigger unit to manage them, said Ohm Tae-am of the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul. – Associated Press