Here is another example of the strategic messaging the North Koreans are sending towards the ROK that they can target and destroy Seoul:
Satellite imagery of a replica of the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae that North Korea has set up in preparations for a large-scale artillery assault exercise.
North Korea is preparing to launch a large-scale artillery assault drill on a replica of the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae in a move to fan cross-border tensions in the runup to a rare congress of its ruling party, the military here said Wednesday.
About 30 artillery pieces have been brought to a training range just outside of Pyongyang where a replica of Cheong Wa Dae, about half its actual size, was set up in early April, a Joint Chiefs of Staff official said.
The types of artillery cannot be identified because they are covered up, he said, citing satellite surveillance results.
“The North is likely to conduct an actual exercise in the near future,” according to the official.
The move is intended to instill animosity among North Koreans toward Seoul’s leadership and to tighten internal unity ahead of the congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea set to start on May 6, he noted.
In a string of warlike rhetoric, the North has repeatedly threatened to launch strikes on the presidential office and South Korean state agencies. [Korea Times]
North Korea’s top leader Kim Jong-un (in black) watches a firing contest by the military’s artillery units in this photo released by the North’s newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Jan. 5, 2016. As is customary, the reports did not specify when Kim viewed the contest, but it is presumed to be his first military-related field guidance of the new year. (Yonhap)
judging by the quick reaction by the ROK forces they were likely ready for what was a pretty predictable action by the North Koreans to try and destroy one of the propaganda loudspeakers:
South Korea fired tens of artillery rounds towards North Korea on Thursday after the North fired a projectile towards a South Korean loudspeaker that had been blaring anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, the defense ministry in Seoul said.
North Korea did not immediately respond to the South’s shots, it said, as tensions rose on the peninsula.
South Korea said its detection equipment had spotted the trajectory of a suspected North Korean projectile launched at around 3:52 pm (0252 EDT), which did not appear to have damaged the loudspeaker or caused any injuries.
“Our military has stepped up monitoring and is closely watching North Korean military movements,” South Korea’s defense ministry said in a statement.
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 comment on events.
The suspected North Korean projectile landed in an area about 60 km (35 miles) north of Seoul in the western part of the border zone, the defense ministry said. South Korean residents in the area were ordered to evacuate, according to the South’s Yonhap news agency.
Yonhap reported that the projectile appeared to have landed in a mountainous area near a South Korean military base in the town of Yeoncheon. [Reuters]
You can read more at the link, but this will not be the last of the tit-for-tat along the DMZ as the North Koreans have threatened more military action if the propaganda speakers are not taken down in 48 hours. In preparation for more provocations civilians along the western DMZ are being evacuated.
It must have been a good exercise to warrant this much attention from the North Koreans:
North Korea leveled a verbal attack on the United States Saturday for South Korean artillery drills near the disputed border in the Yellow Sea.
In a statement, the Panmunjom mission of the Korean People’s Army claimed that the U.S. is behind the “military provocations,” as it seeks to maintain the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de-facto sea border between the two Koreas.
“The U.S. is hurling the puppet forces into ceaseless arms build-up and military provocations in the above-said waters in a sinister bid to preserve the illegal ‘northern limit line’, to begin with,” an unnamed spokesman said, according to Korean Central News Agency.
The NLL was drawn by the U.S.-led U.N. forces at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War but the North has refused to acknowledge it.
It’s a “foolish intention to preserve the waning justification” for the U.N. Command, the North’s military said.
“These reckless military provocations of the U.S. will only precipitate its doomsday,” read the statement. [Yonhap]
An artillery firing drill is underway at a South Korean military unit near the border with North Korea in Goseong County, Gangwon Province, on Dec. 16, 2014. (Yonhap)
