South Korean military on Monday fired warning shots and scrambled fighters after North Korean drones violated its airspace, Yonhap News Agency reported citing officials.
South Korea issued the warning messages, fired warning shots, and scrambled fighters, attack helicopters and other warplanes to remove them, while it remains unconfirmed whether the vehicles carry any weapons, the official said. “We also identified them with our eyes,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “An operation is still ongoing against the vehicles,” the official said.
Earlier, South Korea accused North Korea of flying “several” drones that crossed the Military Demarcation Line between the two countries, reported Yonhap News Agency.
South Korea’s military detected multiple “unidentified objects,” presumed to be unmanned aerial vehicles, in border areas of Gyeonggi Province from 10:25 am, according to an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The North’s drone operations have been a source of growing security concerns here, as they could be used for spy operations, as well as potential attack missions against the South, according to Yonhap news agency.
The latest violation of the South’s territorial air raised tensions anew after the North fired two short-range ballistic missiles on Friday.
The missiles were fired from Pyongyang’s Sunan area at around 4:32 pm local time, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement Friday.
It added the two missiles were launched into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
North Korea is ratcheting up tensions with a record number of launches in 2022. This marks the 36th day North Korea has fired missiles this year alone, often launching multiple weapons at a time, reported CNN.
The Japan Coast Guard said it believed a ballistic missile had fallen outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, citing information from the country’s Ministry of Defence.
Under leader Kim Jong Un, the isolated nation has aggressively ramped up missile tests, with US and South Korean experts warning that Pyongyang could be preparing for a nuclear test – which would be it’s first in more than five years.
As reported by CNN, satellite imagery earlier this year showed activity at its underground nuclear test site.