SEOUL, Some of the artillery shells recently fired by the North Korean military fell just above the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea, a military source said Sunday, stoking tension on the tensely guarded western border, where past naval skirmishes have taken place.

North Korea fired some 200 artillery shells from its southwestern coastal areas Friday, prompting the South Korean troops on the front-line islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong to stage live-fire drills in response.

Most of the North Korean shells splashed into the maritime buffer zone, with some falling in waters as close as 7 kilometers north of the NLL, according to the source.

The latest saber-rattling came after Pyongyang in November vowed to restore military measures halted under a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement, which set up buffer zones in land, sea and air and banned live-fire drills near the border area to prevent accidental clashes.

The gun ports of the coastal artillery on a North Korean island near the Northern L
imit Line, a de facto maritime border, remain open in this photo taken from South Korea’s front-line island of Yeonpyeong on Jan. 7, 2023.

“As North Korea vowed to scrap the inter-Korean military pact and conducted live-fire drills near the maritime buffer zone, mutually agreed buffer zones that ban hostile acts no longer exist,” a military official said, asking for anonymity.

The South Korean military is considering taking corresponding measures when North Korea’s artillery shells cross the NLL or land near the de facto maritime border, according to the official.

North Korea’s Friday artillery firing marked the 16th one of its kind, including a missile launch in 2022. The South Korean military conducted live-fire drills near the maritime buffer zone for the first time since the signing of the 2018 pact.

On Saturday, the North carried out live-fire drills for the second consecutive day to fire around 60 shells from the western coast, which landed in the maritime buffer zone above the NLL, the Joint Chiefs
of Staff (JCS) said.

The South Korean military didn’t conduct live-fire drills in response, considering them less threatening compared with Friday’s exercise, military officials said.

North Korean soldiers connect detonators in this footage taken from the North’s Korean Central Television on Jan. 7, 2024. Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, claimed the North conducted a “deceptive operation” by detonating explosives simulating the sound of 130 mm coastal artillery the previous day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution)

On Sunday, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, claimed the North conducted a “deceptive operation” by detonating explosives simulating the sound of 130 mm coastal artillery the previous day, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

“The KPA did not fire even a single shell into the relevant waters,” the vice department director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Committee said, re
ferring to the North’s Korean People’s Army.

“The ROK military gangsters quickly took the bait we threw,” Kim said, calling South Korea by its official name.

Kim said the operation was aimed at exposing the South Korean military’s detection capability, warning of an “immediate military strike” if the South provokes.

In addition to Kim’s statement, the North’s Korean Central Television broadcast a 44-second video of what appeared to be explosives planted by the North Korean military consecutively detonating in a field surrounded by hills.

This footage, taken from North Korea’s Korean Central Television on Jan. 7, 2024, shows the North’s military detonating explosives. Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, claimed the North conducted a “deceptive operation” by detonating explosives simulating the sound of 130 mm coastal artillery the previous day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution)

In response, the JCS called Kim’s statement on the South Korean militar
y’s detection capability “psychological warfare,” urging the North to cease acts that escalate tension in the border area.

Naval skirmishes between South and North Korea took place near the western maritime border in 1999, 2002 and 2009.

In 2010, North Korea fired a barrage of artillery shells on Yeonpyeong Island, killing two South Korean Marines and two civilians.

The North has contested the legitimacy of the NLL — drawn unilaterally by the U.S.-led U.N. Command after the 1950-53 Korean War — in recent decades and has demanded that it be redrawn, a request that the South has rejected.

Source: Yonhap News Agency