US vows to defend South Korea after attack

GLOBAL leaders have condemned North Korea for provoking an exchange of artillery fire with the South yesterday.

The secretive Stalinist state shelled an island near their disputed sea border, killing at least two South Korean marines, setting dozens of buildings ablaze and sending civilians fleeing for shelter.

The clash, which put South Korea’s military on high alert, was one of the rivals’ most dramatic confrontations since the Korean War ended, and one of the few to put civilians at risk, though no non-military deaths were immediately reported.

Fifteen South Korean soldiers and three civilians were injured and the extent of casualties on the northern side was unknown.

The United States, which has more than 28,000 troops in South Korea, condemned the attack. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called on North Korea to “halt its belligerent action”, and said the US is committed to South Korea’s defence.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for “immediate restraint”.

The supreme military command in Pyongyang threatened more strikes if the South crossed their maritime border by “even 0.001 millimetre”, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The skirmish began when Pyongyang warned the South to halt military drills in the area, according to South Korean officials. When Seoul refused and began firing artillery into disputed waters, albeit away from the North Korean shore, the North retaliated by bombarding the small island of Yeonpyeong, which houses South Korean military installations and a small civilian population.

South Korea responded by firing howitzers and dispatching fighter jets. Officials in Seoul said there could be considerable North Korean casualties. The skirmish lasted about an hour.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who convened an emergency security meeting after the initial attack, said an “indiscriminate attack on civilians can never be tolerated”.

“Enormous retaliation should be made to the extent that [North Korea] cannot make provocations again,” he said.

A statement from the North said it was merely “reacting to the military provocation of the puppet group with a prompt, powerful, physical strike”, and it accused Seoul of starting the skirmish with its “reckless military provocation as firing dozens of shells inside the territorial waters of the” North.

The two countries technically remain at war because a peace treaty was never signed at the end of the Korean War in 1953, and nearly two million troops are positioned on both sides of the world’s most heavily militarised border.

The exchange comes amid high tensions over the North’s apparent progress in its quest for nuclear weapons — Pyongyang claims it has a new uranium enrichment facility — and six weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il anointed his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as the heir apparent.

China, the North’s economic and political benefactor, which also maintains close commercial ties to the South, appealed to both sides “to do more to contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula”.

South Korea holds military exercises off the west coast about every three months. In March, a South Korean warship went down in the waters while on a routine patrolling mission. Forty-six sailors were killed. Seoul blamed a North Korean torpedo, but Pyongyang denied responsibility.