Kim Jong-il removed from targets

South Korea has ordered its army units to stop using photographs of the North Korean premiere and his family for target practice.

Soldiers based in South Korea are being told they must immediately remove all photographs of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il, his youngest son and his father from their training targets.

This marks s a u-turn from the defence ministry's first announcement, in which it was stated that individual commanders could allow their troops to shoot at whichever images they liked.

One military official claimed that the practice of shooting at Kim - who leads their northern neighbours in a secretive and hostile regime - was to "boost battle spirit", but he would remove the pictures in order to comply with inter-Korean relations.