The file photo of a North Korean soldier standing guard in front of rocket launch installations (Photo by AFP)
North
Korea has placed its frontline forces on alert for war with the South,
in an apparent move to launch attacks should the latter ignore an
ultimatum to end its propaganda campaign against Pyongyang.
The
North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the country’s leader
Kim Jong-un had ordered the frontline, combined units of the Korean
People’s Army (KPA) to “enter a wartime state” from Friday 5:00 pm (0800
GMT).
The troops should be “fully battle-ready to launch surprise
operations” while the entire frontline should be placed in a “semi-war
state,” the agency quoted him as saying.
Pyongyang has given Seoul
until Saturday to call off a mudslinging campaign it recently
re-launched against the North by broadcasting propaganda through
loudspeakers over the border.
South Korea went back to the
practice last week after an 11-year-long hiatus. Seoul made the decision
after blaming Pyongyang for a landmine explosion that severely injured
two South Korean soldiers who were patrolling the inter-Korean
demilitarized zone. North Korea has denied the accusation that it had
planted the mines.
Pyongyang has also reinstalled loudspeakers of its own along the border with the South.
This
screen grab, taken from North Korean TV and released by South Korea’s
news agency Yonhap on August 21, 2015, shows North Korean leader Kim
Jong-Un (L) during an emergency meeting of the Central Military
Commission on August 20, 2015. (Photo by AFP)
An
emergency meeting late Thursday of the North’s Central Military
Commission (CMC) endorsed the ultimatum and ratified plans for “a
retaliatory strike and counterattack on the whole length of the front.” Brinkmanship at a time of volatility?
South
Korea’s Defense Ministry has rejected the North’s ultimatum, with a
spokesman insisting the country would “continue operating the
loudspeakers.”
The escalation of tensions between the two sides
was also marked by a rare exchange of fire on Thursday between the two
Korea. According to reports, the exchange of fire was triggered by North
Korea, which fired several shells in the general direction of one of
the South’s border propaganda units.
The two Koreas remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
