Seoul bolsters defense of border islands

South Korea has deployed mobile surface-to-air missiles and amphibious armored vehicles to its border islands to better fend off a surprise North Korean infiltration of the islands, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday.

During a parliamentary audit, the JCS also stressed that it was maintaining top readiness to promptly respond to the North’s possible attacks by the North on civilian groups sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets in areas close to the inter-Korean border.

“We have devised a plan to rapidly respond to potential surprise infiltrations of Baengnyeongdo and Yeonpyeongdo islands by North Korea as we have recalibrated the North’s military reinforcement and types of possible attacks,” said the JCS in a policy report to the audit.

The mobile surface-to-air missile Singung with a maximum range of 7 kilometers is to be mobilized to shoot down North Korean helicopters flying at a low altitude. The JCS also plans to upgrade Cobra attack helicopters to better deal with the threats from the North’s hovercrafts.

To deal with a possible military response tby the North to anti-North Korean leaflets, the military is replacing 105 mm-caliber towed artillery pieces, deployed at frontline units, with 155 mm-caliber self-propelled howitzers.

Last Friday, the two Koreas exchanged fire after the North shot heavy machine guns toward Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province, from which civic groups had sent balloons carrying anti-North Korea leaflets. Some of the shells from the North dropped in the civilian access control area in South Korea’s territory.

During a parliamentary audit, the JCS said that last Friday, the North also shot heavy machine guns toward Paju, Gyeonggi Province, from which another civic group had sent anti-Pyongyang balloons intended for North Korean people suffering under the dictatorial regime.

Meanwhile, the JCS also said it was running a system to prevent South Korean troops deployed to South Sudan from contracting the Ebola virus. It said that it has established an anti-infection system consisting of three phases ― tension, danger and crisis.

“Currently, we are applying the danger phase and focusing on distributing sanitizers and sterilizing facilities,” said the JCS in its report.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)