By Simon Martin

YESTERDAY, North Korea fired two more short- range missiles to add to Monday's nuclear test and three missile launches.

However, analysts are now saying the burst of belligerence is not aimed at strengthening Pyongyang's hand in nuclear-disarmament talks, as some have assumed, but a move by ailing leader Kim Jong Il to shore up his authority at home.

He might be showing solidarity with the military, a key audience whose support would be essential in securing his choice of successor. Another intended audience would be North Korea's largely impoverished population, in the hope that a display of technological prowess could serve as Mr Kim's legacy in a regime that cannot even deliver basic food and electricity.

Given this analysis, experts say the six-party disarmament talks which began in 2003 are dead in the water.

"The internal domestic dynamic is taking precedence over external factors," said Mr Peter Beck, a Korea expert at the American University in Washington.

"This is part of Mr Kim shoring up support for his regime among the inner circle and the public. The best evidence of this will be if they hold a large public rally in coming days, as they did in 2006."

Mr Beck said the 67-year-old leader, widely believed to have suffered a stroke last August, "is not in good shape and he knows it". Mr Beck and other analysts said Mr Kim feels pressed to settle the power transfer - possibly to youngest son Kim Jong Un, 26 - before his health worsens.

Korea expert Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation think-tank said the North's eagerness to conduct a nuclear test so soon after its April 5 long-range missile launch "shows it has abandoned its previous facade of negotiations" and is striving to achieve a viable nuclear weapon and a long- range missile to deliver it.

There is therefore likely to be more missile and nuclear activity this year.

Mr Klingner said the change in objectives "may have been triggered by Mr Kim's health crisis and a desire to achieve nuclear objectives prior to his death or a formal succession".

Some analysts suggest Pyongyang might eventually be willing to talk, but only as a recognised nuclear power - something which Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have always adamantly refused to accept.

"They are interested in nuclear arms-control negotiations with the United States where two established nuclear states negotiate mutual arms reductions, but never fully give up their weapons," said Mr Victor Cha, former president George W. Bush's top adviser on Korean affairs.

The conclusion must again be that the six-nation talks - whose objective is the North's total nuclear disarmament in exchange for energy aid and major security and diplomatic benefits - are doomed.

South Korea has already retaliated with a move certain to compound tensions, by saying it would join a US-led initiative to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction. Pyongyang had earlier warned that such actions would be considered a declaration of war.