NK fires 130 artillery rounds near NLL

South Korean Navy placed on high alert

North Korea fired about 130 artillery rounds near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea on two occasions, Monday afternoon, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The South’s Navy was immediately placed on alert.

The JCS sent a message to the North by radio telling it to stop firing or face the consequences.

Top security-related aides to President Lee Myung-bak were also engaged in a conference call with JCS officers.

The JCS was trying to confirm whether some of the artillery rounds landed in the southern side of the sea border that is disputed by the North.

Some initial reports said that the columns of water raised when the rounds landed were sighted south of the NLL, but the JCS didn’t confirm this. If confirmed, it could be taken as a serious act of provocation that might invite the South to react.

The artillery barrage came on the heels of Seoul ending a five-day anti-submarine exercise in the West Sea in a show of force against Pyongyang, following the latter’s torpedo attack that sank the South Korean frigate Cheonan near the NLL on March 26.

It also occurred a day before a colonel-level military meeting between the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) and North Korea at the truce village of Panmunjeom, which will deal with the sinking of the Cheonan. Pyongyang has denied any involvement in the incident that a multinational investigation team confirmed as a torpedo attack, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.

“About 10 artillery shots were fired toward the NLL starting at 5:30 p.m., and some 120 more shots followed between 5:52 p.m. and 6:14 p.m.,” a JCS officer told reporters.

North Korea has often conducted artillery drills near the NLL, which it has never recognized. Early this year, the two Koreas were engaged in days of an intensive artillery standoff near the sea border, drawn up by the UNC at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Two fatal naval gun exchanges occurred there in 1999 and 2002. The latest skirmish near the NLL was last November.

Following a massive joint air and naval readiness exercise by the South Korean and U.S. militaries in the East Sea late last month, South Korea launched an independent anti-submarine drill in the West Sea last week.

The exercise involved about 4,500 men and women from the South Korean Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, together with scores of warships and fighter jets.

The 14,500-ton Dokdo Landing Platform Helicopter led the combined naval maneuvers with the support of 4,500-ton KDX-II destroyers, attack submarines, Lynx anti-submarine helicopters and P-3C maritime patrol aircraft.

“The drills were carried out with the highest-ever intensity, and we estimated that our goal was achieved," a JCS official said after the exercises ended around 5:00 p.m. "By analyzing the enemy's provocations by scenarios, we completed mapping out defensive readiness for actual warfare.”

In the run-up to the exercise, the North's military command overseeing the West Sea border said it would “return fire for fire” with "powerful physical retaliation.”

On Saturday, the North’s Rodong Shinmun said that their vow to “physically retaliate” against the drill was not an empty one.