US begins war drills in Korea in Korea

South hears new gunfire from North

Associated Press

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea

North Korean artillery was heard today on the frontline South Korean island attacked last week, though no shells landed on the island, South Korea’s military said.

One artillery round was heard from a North Korean military base north of the sea border dividing the two Koreas, an official with South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

Residents of Yeonpyeong Island were ordered to take shelter because of the sound, he said. The evacuation order was later lifted.

Four South Koreans died last week after the North rained artillery on the small Yellow Sea island, which is home to both fishing communities and military bases.

The artillery sound and the evacuation came just hours after South Korea and the United States launched joint military drills near the area.

The exercises came as the North worked to justify one of the worst assaults on South Korean territory since the 1950-53 Korean War.

North Korea said civilians were used as a “human shield” around artillery positions and lashed out at what it called a “propaganda campaign” against Pyongyang.

It claimed the United States orchestrated last Tuesday’s clash so that it could stage joint naval exercises in the Yellow Sea with the South that include a U.S. nuclear powered supercarrier — enraging the North and making neighboring China uneasy.

Also today, a Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo met with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Seoul, according to Lee’s office, which provided no details. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said they discussed the North Korean attack and how to ease tensions.

The aggression could be linked to the North’s attempt to strengthen its government as it pursues a delicate transfer of power from leader Kim Jong Il to a young, unproven son. It also may reflect Pyongyang’s frustration that it has been unable to force a resumption of stalled international talks on receiving aid in return for nuclear disarmament.

The attack laid bare weaknesses 60 years after the Korean War in South Korea’s defenses against the North, which does not recognize the border drawn by the U.N. at the close of the conflict and which considers waters around Yeonpyeong as its territory.

The skirmish prompted Lee to replace his defense minister on Friday.

At a funeral Saturday near Seoul, South Korea’s marine commander, Maj. Gen. You Nak-jun, vowed a “thousand-fold” retaliation for the attack. Dignitaries and relatives laid white flowers at an altar for the two marines killed. The mother of one of the victims fell forward in her chair in grief.

Passers-by paused at Seoul’s main train station to watch funeral footage on a big screen.

“Once the enemy attacks us, it is our duty to respond even more strongly,” said student Jeon Hyun-soo, 19. “The South Korean people want this.”

Elsewhere in Seoul, about 70 former special forces troops protested what they called the government’s weak response and scuffled with riot police in front of the Defense Ministry, pummeling the riot troops’ helmets with wooden stakes and spraying fire extinguishers.

North Korea’s state news agency said that although “it is very regrettable, if it is true, that civilian casualties occurred on Yeonpyeong island, its responsibility lies in enemies’ inhumane action of creating a ’human shield’ by deploying civilians around artillery positions.”

The North said its enemies are “now working hard to dramatize ’civilian casualties’ as part of its propaganda campaign.”

South Korea was conducting artillery drills Tuesday from the island, located just seven miles (11 kilometers) from North Korea’s mainland, but fired away from the mainland.

The North said it warned South Korea to halt the drills on the morning of the attack, as part of “superhuman efforts to prevent the clash to the last moment.”

The North said that Today’s planned U.S.-South Korean war games showed that the United States was “the arch criminal who deliberately planned the incident and wire-pulled it behind the scene.”

The war games, which involve the USS George Washington supercarrier, display resolve by Korean War allies Washington and Seoul to respond strongly to any future North Korean aggression. However, Washington has insisted the drills are routine and were planned well before last Tuesday’s attack.

The drills kicked off Today morning when ships from both countries entered the exercise zone, an official with South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

However, a spokesman for the U.S. military in South Korea said U.S. ships were still steaming toward the area and the drills would not officially begin until later in the day.

North Korea on Saturday warned of retaliatory attacks creating a “sea of fire” if its territory is violated.

The South Korean president told top officials “there is a possibility North Korea may take provocative actions during the (joint) exercise,” and urged them to coordinate with U.S. forces to counter any such move, according to a spokesman in the president’s office who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing official protocol.

Washington and Seoul have pressed China to use its influence on Pyongyang to ease tensions. China is impoverished North Korea’s biggest benefactor and its major ally.