PYONGYANG, North Korea— South Korea fired dozens of shells Thursday at North Korea after claiming the North lobbed a single rocket at a South Korean town broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda near the world’s most heavily armed border. The North denied it fired any shots and warned of retaliation for what it called a serious provocation.
Officials in Seoul said the North fired the rocket across the Demilitarized Zone to back up an earlier threat to attack South Korean border loudspeakers that, after a lull of 11 years, have started broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda. But the Supreme Headquarters of the Korean People’s Army issued a statement later Thursday denying it had launched any shots at the South.
“Using the pretext that our forces fired one shell to the south, which is not true, it made reckless moves by firing 36 shells at our military posts,” said the statement, published in Korean by the North’s state media. It said the shells landed near four military posts, but caused no injuries.
“This reckless shelling incident is a serious military provocation to our sacred territory and military posts which is intolerable,” it said.
