(Newswire.net — August 21, 2015) — South Korea orders border evacuations as North Korea declares readiness for war Thursday at 5 p.m., Russia Today reported.
According to South Korean sources, there is evidence that North Korea is about to test-launch short and medium range missiles at its southern border. The day before, the two states exchanged artillery fire across the border.
“The North is showing signs of deploying a Scud missile near Wonsan and a Rodong missile in the North Pyeongan Province,” a government source told the Yonhap news agency. The source cited data from a South Korean and US military jointly operated radar system.
“It seems that (the North) is weighing the timing of the firing under its strategic intention to increase military tension on the Korean Peninsula to the highest level,” the source stated.
The two neighboring countries have very different ideologies, South and North Korea, has never been particularly friendly one to another, considering each other a threat. The tensions progressed geometrically after South Korea and the US joined large military maneuvers, which agitated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who accused US of destabilizing the region.
According to South Korean national broadcaster KBS, North Korea targeted some military loudspeakers which emitted constant propaganda audio material. Reportedly, before attacking the loudspeakers, North Korea repeatedly warned South Korea to stop the ‘audio attack’ on border troops and citizens.
After South Koreans refused to dismantle the audio gear, North Korean artillery attacked with several shells the loudspeaker posts along the border on the South Korean side.
“A barrage of supposedly North Korean military shells was detected by (South Korea’s) anti-battery radar” at 3:52pm,” a South Korean Ministry of defense official said as cited by the agency.
Reportedly, South Korean military responded with a artillery barrage across the border but it is unclear what the target was. After the incident, South Korean government ordered the evacuation of the villages near the northern border, while North Korea officially raised a military readiness to the state of war.
Mounting propaganda loudspeakers along the borders was the South’s response to the incident in which two South Korean military troops were killed in a border patrol by a primitive land mine deployed by North Koreans.