NORTH KOREA WARNS OF ALL-OUT WAR
By the CNN Wire Staff
S T O R Y H I G H L I G H T S
- North Korea continues to protest U.S. and South Korea's military drills
- The U.S. and South Korean drills will go on until Friday
- The drills are a response to the sinking of a South Korean ship, the U.S. has said
(CNN) -- North Korea warned Tuesday that the continuing military drills by the United States and South Korea could lead to "all-out war any time."
The firmly-worded message was published in North Korea's state-run KCNA news service.
"If the U.S. and the South Korean war-like forces fire even a shell into the inviolable land and territorial waters of the DPRK, they will have to pay dearly for this," the news service report said.
South Korea and the United States launched joint anti-submarine military exercises on Monday, drawing consternation from North Korea.
Seoul and Washington postponed the exercises earlier this month because of a tropical storm.
The drills, which are to run through Friday, are "designed to send a clear message of deterrence to North Korea," U.S. Forces Korea have said.
U.S. officials have said the exercises off the western coast of the Korean peninsula are in response to North Korea's sinking of a South Korean warship in March.
In May, a report from South Korea blamed the North for sinking the Cheonan warship with a torpedo, killing 46 sailors.
North Korea denies sinking the ship and says South Korea and the United States are using it as a pretext to conduct the war games.
The drills also come after the November 23 shelling of a South Korean island by North Korea. The attack on Yeonpyeong Island killed four South Koreans and injured 15 others.
U.S. Navy crew members work on the aircraft carrier USS
George Washington during a joint U.S.- South Korean military exercise
Brink of War
By Matt Gurney
November 24, 2010 - Early Tuesday morning, local time, South Korean military forces were conducting a military exercise from a Marine base on the island of Yeonpyeong. The exercise involved firing artillery from the base, out over the Yellow Sea, to the south of the island — and away from North Korean territory.
North Korea contacted the South during the exercise and demanded that the South cease fire. When the South refused to comply with the North’s demand, North Korea opened fire [1] on Yeonpyeong Island, territory that has been recognized by the United Nations as belonging to the South for 57 years.
This attack is the most serious incident between the two nations since they were divided after the Second World War.
The North Korean attack, involving approximately 100 artillery shells, hit the base on Yeonpyeong, killing two [2] South Korean Marines and wounding 15 others. The North also shelled several civilian villages around the base. It is not known whether or not the civilian areas were intentionally targeted or were hit due to failures in North Korean targeting, but multiple (reports range from several to several dozen) private homes and buildings were destroyed. The island’s civilian population quickly sought shelter underground, but three civilians were still wounded in the attack.
South Korea was not long in responding. It immediately returned fire with its own artillery; while the North has of course not revealed its own losses, the South Korean military is a modern, well-equipped fighting force, and it’s near certain that they hit what they were aiming at. North Korean casualties are likely. The South also scrambled F-16 fighter jets [3] to the area, but there are no reports yet as to whether or not they engaged any targets in North Korea. The South Korean military, while holding off on any further reaction to the North’s attack, is now at its maximum state of alert.
It is difficult to overstate the gravity of Tuesday’s attack. The two Koreas are both heavily armed nations, locked in a permanent state of war since a truce ended the Korean War in 1953. The two armies face off against each other across the Demilitarized Zone, where the modern military of South Korea, some 600,000 strong, is opposite a larger North Korean military, of an estimated one million troops, armed with mid-20th century weapons.
The North’s technological backwardness should not cause anyone to underestimate it. Quantity has a quality on its own, and in a final battle between the larger Cold War-era force and the modern, mobile South Koreans, while the South would likely win, it would not do so cheaply. Its capital city, Seoul, is within artillery range of North Korean positions, and as the North has shown today, it is now willing to use its artillery against South Korean soil. Any war between the two would be devastating in both lives and property and would send shockwaves through the fragile global economy.
This is not the first time that the South has been provoked by North Korea.
Indeed, it was only eight months ago, in March,that the North Korean Navy launched an unprovoked attack [4] upon the South. The South Korean warship Cheonan was torpedoed as it sailed the waters near Yeonpyeong Island. The torpedo explosion, which struck with no warning, blew the Cheonan in half. She went down quickly, taking 46 men with her. Another man, a South Korean rescue diver, would later die during search and recovery efforts to the Cheonan’s hulk.
Map: Yeonpyeong Island, S. Korea
