North Korea’s leader ordered his troops to prepare for battle yesterday after the most serious confrontation with Seoul for several years.
Kim Jong Un ordered his forces to “enter a wartime state” after tensions surrounding propaganda broadcasts across the frontier spilt over this week into an artillery duel on the world’s most dangerous frontier.
In response, the US announced it was halting its annual military excercise with South Korea in an effort to take the heat from the worst stand-off across the peninsula’s so-called demilitarised zone for years.
North Korean vehicles carrying short-range Scud and medium-range Rodong missiles were moving in a possible preparation for launches, reported South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing an unidentified government source.
The North has given Seoul a deadline of this evening to remove loudspeakers on the border that, after a lull of 11 years, have started broadcasting anti-North Korea propaganda. Failure, Pyongyang said, would result in further military action.
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South Korea has vowed to continue the broadcasts. The North’s state media threatened to reduce Seoul to a “sea of fire”, as the two sides kept up the bellicose rhetoric. Pyongyang is believed to have thousands of pieces of artillery trained to fire on the South Korean capital.
Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency reported that Mr Kim had ordered that troops be “fully ready for any military operations at any time” from 5pm local time on Friday.
South Korea, which is backed by 28,500 United States troops on the peninsula, has vowed to hit back with overwhelming strength should North Korea attack again.