N. Korea attacks S. Korean island, killing 2 marines

Praxius

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Dec 18, 2007
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Seoul fires back, scrambles jets
N. Korea attacks S. Korean island, killing 2 marines - Front - TheChronicleHerald.ca

SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire Tuesday after the North shelled an island near their disputed sea border, killing at least two South Korean marines, setting dozens of buildings ablaze and sending civilians fleeing for shelter.

The skirmish began when Pyongyang warned the South to halt military drills in the area, according to South Korean officials. When Seoul refused, the North bombarded the small South Korean-held island of Yeonpyeong, which houses military installations and a small civilian population.

South Korea returned fire and dispatched fighter jets in response, and said there could be considerable North Korean casualties as troops unleashed intense retaliatory fire. The supreme military command in Pyongyang threatened more strikes if the South crossed their maritime border by ``even 0.001 millimeter,'' according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

Government officials in Seoul called the bombardments ``inhumane atrocities'' that violated the 1953 armistice halting the Korean War. The two sides technically remain at war because a peace treaty was never signed.

The exchange was a sharp escalation of the skirmishes that flare up along the disputed border from time to time, and come amid high tensions over North Korea's claim that it has a new uranium enrichment facility and just six weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il unveiled youngest son Kim Jong Un as his heir apparent.

Columns of thick black smoke could be seen rising from homes on the island in footage aired by YTN cable television. Screams and shouts filled the air as shells rained down on the island for about an hour.

``I thought I would die,'' Lee Chun-ok, 54, told The Associated Press after being evacuated to the port city of Incheon, west of Seoul. ``I was really, really terrified, and I'm still terrified.''

She said she was watching TV when the shelling began, and a wall and door in her home suddenly collapsed.

The United States, which has more than 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea, condemned the attack. in Washington, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called on North Korea to ``halt its belligerent action,'' and said the U.S. is ``firmly committed'' to South Korea's defence, and to the ``maintenance of regional peace and stability.''

China, the North's economic and political benefactor, which also maintains close commercial ties to the South, appealed to both sides to remain calm and ``to do more to contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

Yeonpyeong, famous for its crabbing industry and home to about 1,200 civilians as well as South Korean military installations, is west of the Korean mainland within sight of North Korean shores. There are about 30 other small islands nearby.

North Korea fired dozens of rounds of artillery in three separate barrages that began in the mid-afternoon, while South Korea returned fire with about 80 rounds, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The entire exchange lasted about an hour.

Two South Korean marines were killed and 16 injured, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Island residents escaped to some 20 shelters on the island and sporadic shelling ended after about an hour, according to the military.

The skirmish occurred a day after the South Korean military began holding drills in the area, exercises that North Korea's military demanded an end to early Tuesday, the JCS said.

South Korean marines participating in the drill had been shooting artillery during those drills, but toward southern waters, away from North Korea, a military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to military rules.

President Lee Myung-bak ordered officials to ``respond sternly'' but to refrain from allowing the situation to escalate, according to a presidential official. He asked not to be identified, citing the issue's sensitivity.

Lee was convening an emergency security meeting, the official said.

The Koreans have remained in a technical state of war for decades because their three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953.

However, North Korea does not recognize the western maritime border drawn unilaterally by the United Nations at the close of the conflict, and the Koreas have fought three bloody skirmishes there in recent years.

In March, a South Korean warship went down in the waters while on a routine patrolling mission. Forty-six sailors were killed in what South Korea calls the worst military attack on the country since the Korean War.

Seoul blamed a North Korean torpedo, but Pyongyang denied responsibility.
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And it seems to have begun...... alright Obama, time to send more US troops abroad to fight in another war..... most in the US wanted a third war with Iran.... so you get the next best thing, N. Korea....... the US has troops there anyways, so it's almost like a discount.
 

Nuggler

kind and gentle
Feb 27, 2006
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How about a nice big nuclear crater right dead centre in NK??...........Or wherever they keep their nuclear stuff.

Not a terribly polite thing to do, but it might shut them up for a bit.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH8O China, (the nation, not our resident idiot), might take umbrage with that action.

Aw well, just a suggestion.

Call Obama. See what he thinks. Or if he thinks.

If "they" use a bomber with two nuke capacity, perhaps they could do a fly-over Iran at the same time.
 

Unforgiven

Force majeure
May 28, 2007
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JLM

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Nov 27, 2008
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Where's Old Dubya when we need him? He'd have dropped a block buster on N.K. by now. :lol:
 

Unforgiven

Force majeure
May 28, 2007
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Where's Old Dubya when we need him? He'd have dropped a block buster on N.K. by now. :lol:

Yeah, I don't think so. You can be sure than any threat like that would be met with a nuke right in downtown Seoul.
 

Icarus27k

Council Member
Apr 4, 2010
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As always with North Korea, actions directed outward are tied to internal events. It probably has something to do with Kim Jong-un. Perhaps it's meant to make the younger Kim look tough.

Where's Old Dubya when we need him? He'd have dropped a block buster on N.K. by now. :lol:

Actually, I believe the Bush administration was afraid of China and therefore wouldn't of taken any action against NK.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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Like I mentioned in another post. China is going to waltz right into N.Korea, play hero to the S.Koreans and get the one thing they NEED not just want.....Hyundai ship yards.
 

Colpy

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Nov 5, 2005
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idiot, the american puppet regime of south korea has been trying to provoke north korea for awhile now

Moron, even without the threat of nukes, Seoul is within range of conventional artillery pieces........Seoul is one of the most modern cities on earth, with 10 million inhabitants.....and with one quarter of the nation's population in the surrounding area.

Even with conventional tube artillery and explosive munitions, NK could cause tens of thousands of casualties in Seoul every day, and do extensive damage to South Korea's economy and stability.......if WMD were used........oh oh.

The people of Korea are not fools, they are not pushing for war......

The suicidal screaming loonies do not rule in the South.....but in the North......

You really have no connect whatsoever with the simplest realities, do you?????
 

Retired_Can_Soldier

The End of the Dog is Coming!
Mar 19, 2006
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Moron, even without the threat of nukes, Seoul is within range of conventional artillery pieces........Seoul is one of the most modern cities on earth, with 10 million inhabitants.....and with one quarter of the nation's population in the surrounding area.

Even with conventional tube artillery and explosive munitions, NK could cause tens of thousands of casualties in Seoul every day, and do extensive damage to South Korea's economy and stability.......if WMD were used........oh oh.

The people of Korea are not fools, they are not pushing for war......

The suicidal screaming loonies do not rule in the South.....but in the North......

You really have no connect whatsoever with the simplest realities, do you?????

Colpy don't go messing up his head with all those facts.

As a former gun detachment commander I concur regarding the artillery.
 

Tonington

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Oct 27, 2006
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Moron, even without the threat of nukes, Seoul is within range of conventional artillery pieces........Seoul is one of the most modern cities on earth, with 10 million inhabitants.....and with one quarter of the nation's population in the surrounding area.

Even with conventional tube artillery and explosive munitions, NK could cause tens of thousands of casualties in Seoul every day, and do extensive damage to South Korea's economy and stability.......if WMD were used........oh oh.

The people of Korea are not fools, they are not pushing for war......

The suicidal screaming loonies do not rule in the South.....but in the North......

You really have no connect whatsoever with the simplest realities, do you?????

The only thing I would add to this Colpy is hearty laughs....if South Korea were truly an American puppet regime, Obama wouldn't have walked away empty handed in free trade negotiations with SK.

:lol:
 

earth_as_one

Time Out
Jan 5, 2006
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North and South Korea have exchanged barbs in this disputed region for some time.
...In 1999, a North Korean ship went down with thirty sailors lost and maybe seventy wounded. That’s a larger total of casualties than this one. And last November (2009), a North Korean ship went down in flames. We don’t know how many people died in that. This is a no man’s land, or waters, off the west coast of Korea that both North and South claim. And the Cheonan ship was sailing in those waters when it was hit by a torpedo.

We have no idea what went on before that. In the past, these several incidents, people have not tried to inquire as to who started it. We don’t know whether the Cheonan had fired on some North Korean ship, and then a North Korean submarine hit it with a torpedo....

Historian Bruce Cumings: US Stance on Korea Ignores Tensions Rooted in 65-Year-Old Conflict; North Korea Sinking Could Be Response to November '09 South Korea Attack

November 11 2009
North Korean ship 'in flames' after sea skirmish with South
North Korean ship 'in flames' after sea skirmish with South - World News, Frontpage - Independent.ie

I'm certain we don't have all the facts regarding what led to this exchange. Here's the North Korean version of events:

... the DPRK's military said in a statement issued late Tuesday that the Korean People's Army (KPA) countered the South Korean artillery firing on Tuesday afternoon, according to Pyongyang's official news agency KCNA.

South Korean troops fired into the waters of DPRK with dozens of shells at 1 p.m. local time (0400 GMT), and the KPA responded immediately to the South Korean military provocation with "determined military measures", it said...

I have no idea if that's true or not, but conducting live fire exercises along a tense disputed border seems unnecessarily provocative, even if South Korean shelling stayed on their side of the border.
 

DurkaDurka

Internet Lawyer
Mar 15, 2006
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North and South Korea have exchanged barbs in this disputed region for some time.


November 11 2009
North Korean ship 'in flames' after sea skirmish with South
North Korean ship 'in flames' after sea skirmish with South - World News, Frontpage - Independent.ie

I'm certain we don't have all the facts regarding what led to this exchange. Here's the North Korean version of events:



I have no idea if that's true or not, but conducting live fire exercises along a tense disputed border seems unnecessarily provocative, even if South Korean shelling stayed on their side of the border.

Giving terrorists and dictatorships regimes benefit of the doubt as per usual, eh, Earth.

The South was conducting exercises on their territory which the UN ceded to them, the North artillery striking their island is a clear violation of the truce and the South's sovereignty.
 

Retired_Can_Soldier

The End of the Dog is Coming!
Mar 19, 2006
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I'm certain we don't have all the facts regarding what led to this exchange. Here's the North Korean version of events:

I have no idea if that's true or not, but conducting live fire exercises along a tense disputed border seems unnecessarily provocative, even if South Korean shelling stayed on their side of the border.

Are you kidding me? Have you not seen TEAM AMERICA?

That Kim Jung character is a loon?

He fed Hans Brix to a carp for God Sake!

Hans Brix was in the United Bloody Nations!

Get Real!