North Korea fires artillery shells into buffer zone for second straight day
來源：開云體育app官方網站發布日期：2023-01-27 14:44:32 瀏覽：763
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| A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer / AFP-Yonhap |
US sends strategic bombers to Guam
By Kang Seung-woo
North Korea conducted artillery drills for the second straight day, escalating tensions further on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, Wednesday, Pyongyang fired some 100 artillery shells from its west coast around noon, adding that the rounds fell into a buffer zone, north of the Northern Limit Line, which were established under the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement, aimed at halting all hostile acts against each other to reduce tensions along the inter-Korean border.
"None of shells invaded our territorial waters," the JCS said in a press statement. "Our military communicated a warning multiple times, regarding the North's breach of the Sept. 19 military accord and the immediate cessation of provocations."
The artillery drill came hours after the totalitarian state fired some 100 artillery rounds into waters west of the country and another 150 rounds into waters east of the country on Tuesday night in a "powerful military countermeasure" to South Korea's ongoing military exercise, according to the General Staff of the North's Korean People's Army. The South Korean military began the two week-long Hoguk defense exercise, Monday.
Also, between Thursday and Friday, Pyongyang flew about 10 military planes close to the border with South Korea, fired artillery rounds off the east and west coasts and launched a short-range ballistic missile toward the East Sea. North Korea has fired eight ballistic missiles over the last three weeks.
"While tracking and monitoring related movements in close cooperation with the United States, our military is strengthening a readiness posture to prepare for possible contingencies," the JCS said.
The provocations also took place while China, North Korea's sole economic pipeline and diplomatic guardian, is holding the Chinese Communist Party's national congress, during which its president, Xi Jinping, is poised to secure an unprecedented third term. Given the gravity of its lone ally, speculation was widely rampant that North Korea would resume provocations after the congress.
In response to North Korea's tension-raising saber-rattling, the U.S. deployed two B-1B Lancers to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, an aviation tracker revealed, Wednesday.
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| This photo is a captured image from Aircraft Spots' Twitter showing the movement of two B-1B bombers from South Dakota to Guam. |
The deployment also came as North Korea is believed to have fully prepared for a seventh nuclear test, while it has fired eight ballistic missiles over the last three weeks.
The B-1B is one of three nuclear-capable strategic bombers of the U.S. Air Force alongside the B-2 Spirit and B-52 Stratofortress and it has often flown to the peninsula in order to show off the U.S.' extended deterrence when North Korea stoked tensions.
For example, when North Korea threatened to test a hydrogen bomb in 2017, the bombers flew off the North's eastern coast to send a strong warning to the country ― a mission that marked the farthest north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) any U.S. fighter or bomber aircraft had flown off North Korea's coast in the 21st century.
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