Tag: North Korea

It looks like the North Koreans wanted to help the South celebrate Chuseok with a balloon show:

 North Korea on Sunday launched balloons likely carrying trash toward South Korea for the second straight day, the South’s military said.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the latest launches, noting the balloons could travel toward the northern part of Gyeonggi Province, which surrounds Seoul, and the broader capital area.

The launch came after the North flew around 50 trash-carrying balloons toward the South from Saturday night to early Sunday, with about 10 trash bundles landing in Gyeonggi Province and Seoul, according to the JCS.

The JCS said the trash mostly consisted of paper, plastic bottles and other household garbage, while no hazardous substances have been found.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea’s war against the fish in the East Sea continues:

North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward the East Sea on Thursday, the South Korean military said, a week after Pyongyang warned that South Korea and the United States will have to pay a “dear price” for their joint drills.

“The North Korean missiles flew about 360 kilometers and landed in the East Sea,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. It said it detected the missiles launched from the Pyongyang area at 7:10 a.m., but it did not provide any further details, such as the number of missiles fired.

The distance, if fired southward, is sufficient to affect major South Korean cities such as Seoul and Daejeon as well as key military facilities in Gyeryong and Gunsan.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like MCST got caught pushing out unverified reports as facts:

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) recently released a webtoon based on the “North Korea Human Rights Report” that included the claim, “30 North Korean middle school students were publicly executed for watching South Korean dramas.”

However, the Unification Ministry, which published the actual human rights report, stated that no such information is included, raising suspicions that the MCST might have fabricated the news.

According to Rep. Yoon Hu-duk of the opposition Democratic Party of Korea, who is also a member of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, the MCST published a webtoon titled “Talking About the Lives of North Korean Residents Through the 2024 North Korea Human Rights Report” on July 30. The webtoon appeared on the “Korea Policy Briefing,” the official government website that introduces government policies.

In the webtoon, characters claim that “North Korea publicly executed 30 middle school students for watching South Korean dramas on USBs carried by balloons,” and “Not only that, but just recently, 30 teenagers around the age of 17 were sentenced to life imprisonment and execution for similar reasons.”

However, the 2024 North Korea Human Rights Report, which the MCST cited as the basis for the webtoon, does not contain such information.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Here is another example of a potential North Korean gray zone attack against South Korea. They have done these water releases before, sometimes with deadly results:

North Korea appears to have discharged a “considerable” amount of water from the upstream of its dam near the inter-Korean border, Seoul’s environment ministry said Wednesday.

Satellite imagery taken at 3 p.m. showed the downstream of the Imjin River had significantly broadened in width, according to the ministry.

The water level of the South Korea’s northernmost Pilseung Bridge on the Imjin River had reached 1 meter as of 5 p.m., up from 0.3 meter recorded three hours before.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

We now know likely why a fire was started by one of North Korea’s trash balloons that landed on a building in South Korea:

Timer devices on some North Korean trash-carrying balloons could cause fires, South Korea’s military said Tuesday, amid a series of fires in the country suspected to be caused by the balloons.

On Monday, firefighters put out a blaze that began on the rooftop of a warehouse in Paju, 27 kilometers northwest of Seoul, after a North Korean trash balloon landed there, renewing concerns whether the balloons or the substances they drop could be a fire hazard.

A Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson said some North Korean balloons have dropped bundles of trash using devices that heat up and disconnect the garbage after a certain period of time, noting they could lead to fires if they land on surfaces without properly separating.

Korea Times via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but clearly this incident shows how the trash balloons can be weaponized to become a more provocative gray zone weapon. Similar to the Imperial Japanese using balloons to start forest fires in the Pacific Northwest during World War II, these trash balloons could easily be used to start forest fires in South Korea.

Even worse would be if these balloons were launched during conflict to complicate aviation and integrated air and missile defense targeting over South Korea. These balloons clearly have a lot more military potential than just the nuisance they appear to be today.

North Korea’s low cost provocation continues:

North Korea sent more trash balloons toward South Korea on Sunday, the South’s military said, in what marked the fifth straight day of such launches.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the North resumed its balloon campaign at around 9 a.m., just hours after it floated some 200 balloons late Saturday.

“Considering the safety of our people as the top priority, the military will resolutely and calmly respond in accordance with the manual,” the JCS said.

In response to the balloon launches, the South’s military has been blasting daily anti-North Korean propaganda broadcasts through loudspeakers on the border since July 21. It has refrained from directly shooting down the balloons, citing safety concerns.

Around 50 trash bundles landed in the capital and Gyeonggi Province from Saturday’s launch, but no hazardous materials have been found, the JCS said. They largely contained scrap paper, pieces of plastic and plastic bottles.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.