Officials deny fights in Pyongyang

South Korean officials deny that the North Korean military might have turned on the communist state's reclusive leader Kim Jong Il or that he could be ill.

The Jiji Press news agency quoted a South Korean source familiar with North Korean affairs who said there was fierce in-fighting among groups close to Kim and that he might be ill, had been put under house arrest by the secretive state's powerful military and was not in the capital Pyongyang.

But officials there say there were no signs of unusual activity.