Tensions are growing in Korea, as Kim Jong-il’s rogue state resumed military exercises in the DMZ.
In a risky game of punch and counterpunch, North Korean gunners opened the episode in the morning by firing off 30 rounds into the Yellow Sea off the Korean west coast, judging from the number of geysers of water reportedly kicked up in the sea where they landed. South Korea responded with as many as 100 warning shots, according to South Korean defense officials, while the South’s Defense Ministry protested in a faxed message to the North.
The artillery crossfire has special resonance following recent militaristic gestures from both sides — and despite a general pattern of civil detente.
Last week, South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Tae-young promised to launch a preemptive strike “if we detected that it has a clear intention to attack with nuclear weapons.”
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