North Korea issues directive for artillery brigades as tensions with South rise

North Korea ordered artillery corps near the border with South Korea to fully prepare to shoot, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported late Sunday.

An image of what North Korea claims is a South Korean unmanned aerial vehicle (translated), left, and flyers (translated), right, released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency Friday. [CHUN YU-JIN]

North Korea ordered artillery corps near the border with South Korea to fully prepare to shoot, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported late Sunday.

The General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army issued an operation preparatory directive on Saturday to the artillery combined forces near the border and units assigned firepower missions to prepare to full-scale fighting, the KCNA reported Sunday.

A spokesperson for North Korea’s Ministry of National Defense stated that the operational preparatory directive included the order to “transfer eight artillery brigades fully armed to the wartime readiness level to a firing standby by 8 p.m. on Sunday and complete various operation security tasks,” according to the KCNA.

Previously on Friday evening, the North Korean Foreign Ministry claimed Seoul sent unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carrying propaganda leaflets to its capital on Oct. 3 and Wednesday and Thursday of last week through a statement carried on KCNA.

Seoul's Defense Ministry warned Sunday that North Korea will "see the end of its regime" if it harms South Koreans as the two sides exchanged bellicose rhetoric over the alleged drone incursion above Pyongyang.

North Korea's Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un, accused South Korea of directly committing a provocation by sending drones to drop propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang, thus infringing on North Korean sovereignty, in a late-night press statement Saturday.

“A situation of grave military tension on the brink of war is being created due to South Korea’s major provocative act of violating the sovereignty of Pyongyang, our capital,” the KCNA report said.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]