DENNIS Rodman has claimed that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is the father to a baby girl.

Rodman made the revelation in an interview with The Sun newspaper, saying Mr Kim's wife, Ri Sol Ju, was a gushing first time mother.

“[Ri Sol Ju] kept talking about their beautiful baby daughter,” Rodman told The Sun.

There had been speculation that Ri Sol Ju was pregnant. If she had given birth to a boy, a future leader, it is almost certain that the news would have been broadcast widely.

Rodman said Mr Kim's wife was "very elegant and quite tall for a Korean - maybe 5ft 5in."

The former basketball star said the North Korean leader "doesn't want to kill anyone" and "wants to talk peace."

“Kim is not one of these Saddam Hussein-type characters that wants to take over the world," he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Kim oversaw a live fire military drill using drones and cruise missile interceptors, state media said, amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim had personally guided the exercise that involved training attacks by "super-precision drone planes".

It did not specify the timing or location of the drill, which came a week after Mr Kim presided over a live-fire artillery exercise near the disputed sea border with South Korea.

Military tensions on the Korean peninsula are at their highest level for years, with North Korea - angered by UN sanctions imposed after its nuclear test last month - threatening a second Korean War backed by nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang has also denounced ongoing joint South Korea-US military manoeuvres, involving nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, calling them a provocative rehearsal for invasion.

The North Korean drones used in the exercise were assigned flight paths and timings "with targets in South Korea in mind", KCNA quoted Mr Kim as saying.

North Korea has no confirmed drone capability, although South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported last year that it was developing unmanned strike aircraft using old US target drones imported from the Middle East.

Still photographs of the exercise broadcast on state television seemed to show what looked like a rudimentary drone being flown into a mountainside target and exploding.

The exercise also included tests of small rockets that KCNA said were capable of bringing down cruise missiles.

Last month the South Korean military released video footage of a newly deployed cruise missile that it said could carry out high precision strikes on command centres anywhere in North Korea.

