Korea Missile Lands Off S.Korean Coast For First Time, South Responds With Own Launches

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Post created on 4:13 pm

 

North Korea fired at least 17 missiles into the sea on Wednesday, including one that landed less than 60 kilometres off South Korea’s coast on Wednesday, prompting South Korea to issue rare air raid warnings and launch its own missiles in response.

It was the first time a ballistic missile had landed near the South’s waters, and the most missiles fired by the North in a single day.

The missile landed outside of South Korea’s territorial waters, but south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a disputed inter-Korean maritime border in what South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called an “effective act of territorial encroachment.”

South Korean warplanes fired three air-to-ground missiles into the sea north across the NLL in response, the South’s military said. An official said the weapons used included an AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER, which is a U.S.-made “stand-off” precision attack weapon that can fly for up to 270 kilometres (170 miles) with a 360 kg (800-pound) warhead.

The South’s launches came after Yoon’s office vowed a “swift and firm response” so North Korea “pays the price for provocation”.

The North Korean weapon was one of three short-range ballistic missiles fired from the North Korean coastal area of Wonsan into the sea, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. The JCS later said as many as 14 other missiles of various types had been fired from North Korea’s east and west coasts.

The JCS said at least one of the missiles landed 26 kilometres south of the NLL, 57 kilometres (35 miles) from the South Korean city of Sokcho, on the east coast, and 167 kilometres from the island of Ulleung, where air raid warnings were issued.

“We heard the siren at around 8:55 am and all of us in the building went down to the evacuation place in the basement,” an Ulleung county official told Reuters. “We stayed there until we came upstairs at around 9:15 after hearing that the projectile fell into the high seas.”

A resident on the southern part of the island said they received no warnings.

The North also fired more than 100 rounds of artillery from its east coast into a military buffer zone established in a military agreement with the South, South Korea’s military said. The firing violates the 2018 agreement, the JCS said.

Nuclear-armed North Korea has tested a record number of missiles this year, and officials in Seoul and Washington say the North has completed technical preparations to conduct a nuclear weapon test for the first time since 2017.

The launches came just hours after Pyongyang demanded that the United States and South Korea stop large-scale military exercises, saying such “military rashness and provocation can be no longer tolerated.”

Despite Yoon’s declaring a national week of mourning after more than 150 people were killed in a weekend crowd surge in Seoul, the United States and South Korea began one of their largest combined military air drills on Monday. Dubbed Vigilant Storm, the exercises involve hundreds of warplanes from both sides staging mock attacks 24 hours a day.

(FRANCE 24)