Seoul, June 26 : North Korea held an anti-American rally for the third day in a row to mark the 72nd anniversary of the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War, with participants vowing to "mercilessly annihilate" the US if it provokes Pyongyang, state media reported on Sunday. The North has held anti-US rallies since Thursday to mark the war anniversary for the first time in five years, reports Yonhap News Agency. Pyongyang skipped such rallies in 2018 amid a thaw in relations with the US and had not resumed them amid the Covid-19 pandemic. "The speakers vehemently denounced the US imperialists for provoking the Korean War to nip in the bud the young DPRK less than two years after its foundation and perpetrating the most hideous massacre and barbaric destruction unprecedented in the world war history," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a report. "They stressed that if the US imperialists dare provoke the DPRK again, oblivious of their bitter defeat in the 1950s, the latter will mercilessly annihilate the imperialists by mobilizing all the invincible physical means it has so far bolstered up," the KCNA said. DPRK stands for the North's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Saturday's rally was held in front of the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum, which was established to commemorate what Pyongyang calls its victory in the Korean War. /IANS