North Korea fires more than 20 missiles towards South Korea: one of them hit the target for the first time

On November 2, North Korea fired at least 23 missiles into the sea, including one that landed less than 60 kilometers off the coast of South Korea. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called it a "territorial encroachment," reports Reuters.

Photo: IStock

It was the first time a ballistic missile had landed near South Korean waters since the peninsula was partitioned in 1945, and the first time North Korea fired the most missiles in a single day. South Korea occasionally issued air raid warnings and fired its own missiles in response.

The missile landed outside South Korean territorial waters but south of the Northern Frontier Line (NLL), the disputed inter-Korean maritime border.

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South Korean warplanes responded by firing three air-to-surface missiles toward the sea north of NLL, the South Korean military said. The official said the weapons used included the AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER, which is a US-made precision attack weapon capable of flying up to 270 km with a 360 kg payload.

"President Yoon Suk-yeol noted that today's provocation by North Korea was an act of territorial missile invasion of the NLL for the first time since separation," his office said in a statement.

When asked if the missile was heading towards South Korean territory and should have been intercepted, a senior presidential official replied: “Strictly speaking, it did not land on our territory, but in the exclusive economic zone under our jurisdiction, so it did not fall under interception action.

The United States condemned North Korea's missile launches and its reckless decision to launch a missile below the actual maritime border with the Republic of Korea, a State Department spokesman said Nov. 2.

Over the past year, North Korea has consistently launched missiles in violation of numerous UN Security Council resolutions, according to US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

"It's unprecedented in the sense that there were so many," she said of the Nov. 2 launches.

air sirens

The missile that crossed the NLL was one of three short-range ballistic missiles fired from North Korea's Wonsan coastal region into the sea, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. The JCS later reported that 14 more missiles of various types had been fired from North Korea's east and west coasts.

The JCS said at least one of the missiles landed 26km south of NLL, 57km from the South Korean east coast city of Sokcho and 167km from Ulleung Island, where the air raid alert was sounded.

“We heard the siren around 8:55 a.m. and everyone in the building went down to the evacuation site in the basement,” an Ulleung County official said. “We stayed there until we went up around 9:15 when we heard a shell hit the open sea.”

North Korea also fired more than 100 artillery rounds from its east coast into the military buffer zone, the South Korean military said. The shelling violated a 2018 military agreement prohibiting hostile actions in border areas, JCS said.

North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

Nuclear-armed North Korea tested a record number of missiles this year, and officials in Seoul and Washington say the DPRK has completed technical preparations to conduct a nuclear test for the first time since 2017.

The launches came just hours after Pyongyang demanded that the US and South Korea stop large-scale military exercises, saying "such military recklessness and provocation is no longer acceptable."

Despite Yun declaring a national week of mourning after more than 150 people were killed in a weekend riot in Seoul, the United States and South Korea began one of their largest joint air exercises on October 31st. Dubbed Vigilant Storm, the exercise involves hundreds of combat aircraft from both sides conducting mock attacks 24 hours a day.

Major military exercises

North Korea, which has carried out missile and nuclear programs in defiance of UN sanctions for years, said the recent series of launches was in response to allied exercises.

Park Chung Chung, secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of North Korea, said on November 2 that the number of warplanes involved in the exercise proved that the Vigilant Storm exercise was "aggressive and provocative" and aimed specifically at North Korea. He said that even its name mimics the US-led Operation Desert Storm against Iraq in the 1990s.

"The ill-considered actions of hostile forces for a military confrontation have created a serious situation on the Korean Peninsula," Park said in a statement released by the state-run KCNA news agency.

On November 1 in Washington, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the exercise was purely defensive in nature and had no hostile intent. Price added that the United States and its allies have also made it clear that if North Korea resumes nuclear testing, there will be "serious costs and serious consequences." He didn't specify which ones.

Asked about the missile launch, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular briefing in Beijing that maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula is in the common interest.

“We hope that all interested parties will adhere to the course towards a political settlement of the peninsula problem, meet each other halfway and prevent the situation from escalating,” he said.

The South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation said the launches will keep some air routes over the sea between North Korea and Japan closed until Nov. 3.

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Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the government believed that at least two ballistic missiles were launched from North Korean territory, one flying east and the other southeast.

North Korea's actions threaten the peace and stability of Japan, the entire region, and the entire international community, Hamada told reporters in Tokyo.

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