North Korea shells YeonPyeong Ilsand

The Marmot wasn’t nervous,

How’s this: North Korea shows off an advanced uranium enrichment program, special envoy Stephen Bosworth calls it the worst North Korean provocation in 20 years, South Korean defense minister Kim Tae-young is talking about the reintroduction of US tactical nukes to South Korea… and I still can’t bring myself to care.

But now he is:

Local news is reporting that North Korea has fired some 50 shells at the West Sea island of Yeonpyeong-do, with South Korea firing 30 rounds in return.

More worrying, some of the North Koreans shells reportedly landed on the island itself, destroying about 60—70 homes and fields. The island’s population has also reportedly taken shelter. No word on casualties.

This is not good. This is not good at all.

I, too, am a little nervous.

Still, this doesn’t feel like the prelude to a deliberate attack.  The North isn’t a democracy that needs to sway it’s citizens with news of being attacked or the like to whip them into a frenzy before launching a real attack.  If they wanted to attack, they would doubtless do so across many fronts at once; across the full length of the DMZ and with hijacked container ships at many harbors and with local agents spreading chaos.  If there was a plan, it would contain some of the above aspects, not the shelling of a single island.

Still, shelling an island is pretty stupid.  Since I can’t see any reason for it, I must assume the North Koreans are crazy and then, who can expect a reasonable attack plan from crazy people?

More news from the Herald, the Times, The Chosun and the Joongang.

The herald reports one ROK soldier killed and the other sources report only injured casualties, including civilians.


Comments

Re: North Korea shells YeonPyeong Ilsand

The North mice got cornered then bit to kill Korean people, accusing the Northern Limit Line had broken first by the South. Because the NLL distance concepts are different bet. the South and the North.  Already foreseen or deja-vue but this time it is an armed attack, that the North declared.  They already shoot over 100's of them in this August, but never really poured on to an island ever before.  Everybody knows it is an act of a war not a game, which the new North leader jeong eun kim and his future administration got involved with. They kill people to get more attention from their neighbors.   Now the South gonna have a right to pay back!  After the two sides gave&took fires; two Korean marines dead with ten gravely and six injured, and three civilians got hurt in the South; presumably many more in the North are expected to be announced.  

What I hear today is only two other South Korean civilians found dead; one of them burnt crashed by the attack to a construction site on the island.

Re: North Korea shells YeonPyeong Island

In a very sharp escalation of stress, North Korea has attacked South Korea.  Many structures are on fire after the assault. I guess this is not the end of it. Tension is just building and is getting worse over time. If UN will not hear and give what North Korea asks for its country then I guess they will continue to show what power they have in terms of military capacity. And I must say that that is scary.

Re: North Korea shells YeonPyeong Island

That is on dispute bet. the south and china.  What the north claims is that the south had set up 'Human Shields' 인간 방패 to get slaughtered, which had typically done by the chine in 1950s to invade the north.  It was a deserted island, where those construction workers go get experimented after being drunk for some hypothetical nut blade sawers.