North Korean soldiers stage an artillery firing exercise, in this photo carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency on Oct. 10. Yonhap

Pyongyang stages barrage of military provocations overnight

By Nam Hyun-woo

North Korea staged multiple military actions including a missile launch, air drill and artillery firing over a single night, Thursday to Friday, in what appears to be unprecedented belligerence in recent years. Experts said tensions on the Korean Peninsula are only increasing as the two Koreas resort to hardline approaches, and it is becoming more difficult to predict the ultimate purpose of the North's recent provocations.

According to Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), North Korea on early Friday launched a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) into the East Sea and fired about 170 rounds of artillery shells into the East and West Seas and some of the rounds landed in maritime buffer zones set under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on ceasing hostile military actions.

The JCS also said that more than 10 North Korean military aircraft staged menacing flights close to the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the border area from 10:30 p.m., Thursday, to 12:20 a.m., Friday, which caused the Republic of Korea Air Force to scramble its F-35A stealth fighters and other assets to the scene.

The North Korean aircraft staged the flights between the NLL and the Tactical Action Line, which was set by South Korea's military about 20 to 50 kilometers from the NLL, to earn time to react to the North's aerial provocations. It was the first case of North Korean aircraft flying south to the Tactical Acton Line since October 2012.

The JCS said the rounds did not drop in South Korean waters but landed in a maritime area north of the NLL in the buffer zone. Since the 2018 comprehensive military agreement prohibits artillery shelling in waters in the buffer zone, the JCS said, "The North has clearly violated the agreement."

Seoul's Ministry of National Defense sent a statement to Pyongyang to note that the artillery firing was a clear violation of the military agreement, but the North is yet to show any response.

Instead, the North's Korean People's Army said it conducted the shelling "as a strong military countermeasure" to South Korea, which had conducted artillery exercises for more than 10 hours.

The JCS said that U.S. Forces Korea had staged a drill involving multiple launch rocket systems at a firing range in Gangwon Province, but that it was a "planned exercise" which had launched rockets toward the South outside of the military buffer zone.

Also on Friday, the South Korean government announced independent sanctions, blacklisting 15 North Korean individuals and 16 institutions for their involvement in the North's nuclear and missile programs and efforts to evade other sanctions. It was the first case of such unilateral sanctions by Seoul in five years, when it imposed one in 2017 in response to an intercontinental ballistic missile launch by Pyongyang.