North Korea may launch a provocation to mark the newly designated anniversary of its Strategic Rocket Force, Seoul's military said Sunday.
According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, there is a possibility that Pyongyang will stage some sort of provocation to mark its rocket force's founding day, which falls on Sunday, and U.S. Fourth of July Independence Day.
"At present there are no out of ordinary signs that the North is planning something, but South Korean forces are maintaining high degree of vigilance," a JCS source said.
The reclusive country designated July 3 as its Strategic Rocket Force Day during a meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly last month. The SPA is the country's parliament.
Military sources said Seoul is on alert because the country has a history of launching missiles around the U.S.'s national holiday that falls a day after the newly created strategic forces day.
On July 4, 2006, the communist country fired off a Taepodong 2 long-range rocket and in 2009, it launched two medium-range Rodong missiles.
This year, South Korea's military said the North may try to fire another Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile or move to launch its Rodong or Scud missiles to show its defiance to the United States and the outside world at large.
The country has not given up on its saber rattling tactics after the United Nations slapped its toughest ever sanction on the North in March for its fourth nuclear test and the launching of a long-range ballistic missile earlier in the year.
In addition, authorities are keeping watch to see whether the country will try to provoke the South along the Northern Limit Line, which acts as the sea demarcation line between the two Koreas.
The South's military said it has detected the deployment of weapons, surveillance assets and troops by North Korea to the islands Galdo and Arido.
It said some 50-60 troops have been stationed on the previously deserted island of Galdo along with six 122-millimeter multiple rocket launcher systems.
On Arido, another formerly uninhabited island, some 20 soldiers have been seen along with surveillance radar and camera systems, the military said. Among the troops, the South thinks there may be some special forces elements that could infiltrate the nearby South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. (Yonhap)
