This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/20/south-korea-north-korea-border-attack-loudspeaker-retaliation

The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
South Korea fires at North Korea in retaliation for loudspeaker attack South Korea fires at North Korea in retaliation for loudspeaker attack
(about 3 hours later)
South Korea has fired artillery rounds towards North Korea after its neighbour fired a projectile towards a South Korean loudspeaker that had been blaring anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, the defence ministry in Seoul has said. South Korea has fired dozens artillery rounds towards North Korea after its neighbour fired several projectiles towards a South Korean loudspeaker that had been blaring anti-Pyongyang broadcasts.
North Korea did not immediately respond to the shots, it said on Thursday, as tensions rose on the peninsula. South Korea said its detection equipment had spotted the trajectory of a suspected North Korean projectile, which did not appear to have damaged the loudspeaker or caused any injuries. The North was backing up an earlier threat to attack South Korean border loudspeakers that, after a lull of 11 years, have started broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda.
“Our military has stepped up monitoring and is closely watching North Korean military movements,” South Korea’s defence ministry said in a statement. The broadcasts began after South Korea accused the North of planting land mines that maimed two South Korean soldiers earlier this month.
South Korea’s military raised its alert status to the highest level. There was no mention of the firing in North Korean state media, which does not typically make immediate comments on events. North Korea first fired a single round believed to be from an anti- aircraft gun, which landed at a South Korean border town on Thursday afternoon. About 20 minutes later, several more artillery shells fell on the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas.
The suspected North Korean projectile landed in an area about 35 miles (56km) north of Seoul in the western part of the border zone, the defence ministry said. South Korean residents in the area were ordered to evacuate, according to the Yonhap news agency. South Korea responded with dozens of 155-milimeter artillery rounds, according to South Korean defense officials.
Yonhap reported that the projectile appeared to have landed in a mountainous area near a South Korean military base in the town of Yeoncheon. There were no reports of casualties, and North Korea didn’t respond militarily to South Korea’s artillery barrage. But the North’s army later warned in a message that it will take further military action within 48 hours if South Korea doesn’t pull down the loudspeakers, according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry.
South Korea’s presidential office said it had convened a meeting of the national security council. South Korea raised its military readiness to its highest level.
The exchange of fire was the first between the two Koreas since last October, when North Korean soldiers approached the border and did not retreat after the south fired warning shots, the South Korean defence ministry said at the time. The north’s soldiers fired back in an exchange of gunfire that lasted about 10 minutes, with no casualties. Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Jeon Ha-kyu told a televised news conference that South Korea is ready to repel any additional provocation. Defense officials said South Korea will continue loudspeaker broadcasts despite the North Korean threats.
Tension between the two countries has risen since early this month when landmine explosions in the demilitarised zone wounded two South Korean soldiers. Seoul accused North Korea of laying the mines, which Pyongyang has denied. North Korea, which has also restarted its own propaganda broadcasts, is extremely sensitive to any criticism of the government run by leader Kim Jong Un, whose family has ruled since the North was founded in 1948. Pyongyang worries that the broadcasts could weaken Kim’s grip on absolute power, analysts say.
Seoul then began blasting anti-North Korean propaganda from loudspeakers on the border, resuming a tactic that both sides had halted in 2004. The artillery exchange also comes during another point of tensions between the Koreas: annual US-South Korean military drills that North Korea calls an invasion rehearsal. Seoul and Washington say the drills are defensive in nature.
North Korea on Saturday demanded that the south halt the broadcasts or face military action, and on Monday began conducting its own broadcasts. Thursday’s exchange of fire came amid ongoing annual joint US and South Korean military exercises, which began on Monday and which North Korea condemns as preparations for war. South Korean President Park Geun-hye convened an emergency National Security Council meeting and ordered South Korea’s military to “resolutely” deal with any provocation by NorthKorea.
The two Koreas have remained in a technical state of war since the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. About 80 residents in the South Korean town where the shell fell, Yeoncheon, were evacuated to underground bunkers, and authorities urged other residents to evacuate, a Yeoncheon official told the Associated Press.
In the nearby border city of Paju, residents were asked to stay home. On Ganghwa Island, residents in villages near a site where South Korea operates one of its loudspeakers were also evacuated, according to island officials.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that a total of about 2,000 residents along the border were evacuated.
Pyongyang has claimed that Seoul fabricated its evidence on the land mines and demanded video proof.
While the Koreas regularly exchange hostile rhetoric, it is also not unusual for fighting to occasionally erupt. Last October, North Korean troops opened fire at areas in Yeoncheon, after South Korean activists launched balloons there that carried propaganda leaflets across the border. South Korea returned fire, but no casualties were reported. Later in October, border guards from the two Koreas again exchanged gunfire along the border, without any casualties.
Before that, the Koreas tangled in a deadly artillery exchange in 2010, when North Korean artillery strikes on a South Korean border island killed four South Koreans. Earlier in 2010, an alleged North Korean torpedo attack killed 46 South Korean sailors.
North Korea’s army said recently in a statement that the South Korean propaganda broadcasts were a declaration of war and that if they were not immediately stopped “an all-out military action of justice” would ensue.
South Korea has said the two soldiers wounded from the mine explosions were on a routine patrol in the southern part of the DMZ that separates the two Koreas. One soldier lost both legs and the other one leg.
The Koreas’ mine-strewn DMZ is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war.