Fresh North Korean Artillery Fire Heard Near Shelled Island: "Brink of War"

Shrill DPRK propaganda threatens "shower of fire"

The ever-belligerent Norks fired more large guns today in the vicinity of the South Korean island shelled on Tuesday. To most observers it appears that a fading Kim Jong Il is happy to blow up a few Southern fisherman in order to impress the military with his choice of under-achieving 27-year-old son Kim Jong Un
-reportedly not the sharpest knife in the drawer- as his designated successor in the world's only hereditary communist dictatorship. 

He's already made the kid a four-star general, and after visiting the artillery site on Monday the younger Kim is rumored to have ordered the attack himself...

AP-

Fresh artillery shots were heard Friday on the tense South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, three days after it was devastated by a North Korean attack and hours after Pyongyang warned that the peninsula was on the brink of war. 

The blasts happened just after the top U.S. commander in South Korea, Gen. Walter Sharp, toured Yeonpyeong Island in a show of solidarity with Seoul and to survey damage from Tuesday's hail of North Korean artillery fire that killed four people. 

An official at the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said several new rounds of artillery fire were heard Friday on Yeonpyeong, which is just 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of the North Korean mainland. The military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several distant explosive sounds came from the direction of North Korea. There were no immediate reports of damage.

Seems the Kims are doing their best to frighten their enemies much as a rattlesnake would... and with a comparable moral code- (Yonhap News Service:)

Threatening "a shower of dreadful fire," North Korea said Friday it will wipe out its enemies if its sovereignty is violated, warning that the Korean Peninsula is inching to the "brink of war." The warnings by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea and the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) are the latest threats Pyongyang has issued since South Korea and the U.S. agreed to hold joint drills near the communist country in a show of force. 

The rhetoric raises already high tension after the communist country exchanged deadly artillery barrages with South Korea on Tuesday, killing two marines and two civilians here in one of the most violent clashes on the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea, officially called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), denies initiating the clash, warning it will mount additional attacks if its territorial waters are violated. 

"The army and people of the DPRK are now greatly enraged at the provocation of the puppet group while getting fully ready to give a shower of dreadful fire and blow up the bulwark of the enemies" if they violate the North's sovereignty, the committee said. 

In the Korean version of the statement released through the KCNA, the North said it is "ready to annihilate enemies' stronghold," a possible reference to major military bases and civilian facilities in the South. 

It also said its forces "precisely targeted and struck" South Korean artillery units on Tuesday in what can seen as an admission of a deliberate attack on the South. 

"Gone are the days when verbal warnings are served only," the committee said in the English statement. "The group should not run amuck, clearly understanding the will and mettle of the highly alerted army and people of the DPRK to wipe out the enemies." 

If the Chinese are serious about being a world leader, now might be an appropriate time to act like it and control their brats before somebody loses an eye... or worse.

Yonghap   AP  Gateway Pundit

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Tokyo Calls for Military Attacks on Pyongyang as Clueless Obama Dithers

Yet another traditionally-close US ally abandoned to fate...

Now DebkaFile is reporting that the Japanese -correctly observing that no response in the face of this second Nork attack only will invite more of them- are strongly promoting the idea of a prompt military reaction... or at least something of significance out of the UN security council.  

The (predictable) White House response...?  [crickets]. 

... the Obama administration was clearly not about to meet Japanese pressure for joint military action in support of Seoul or reinforce its fighting forces on the peninsula – even as a deterrent. 

Two South Korean marines were killed and 17 soldiers and 3 civilians injured as the flames engulfed the targeted island. A Pentagon spokesman also said it was too early to discuss redeploying US tactical nuclear arms to South Korea, a possibility raised by South Korea's Defense Minister Kim Tae-young Monday when North Korea's parade of its uranium enrichment and light water plants came to light. 

The Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's second demand in his call to President Barak Obama after the North Korean attack was to convene an urgent UN Security Council meeting. That too went unheeded. The session France announced would take place Tuesday night was indefinitely postponed. 

The Japanese prime minister maintained to Obama that North Korea must not be allowed to get away with two armed attacks on the South in the space of eight months without a military response. On March 26, North Korean torpedoes sunk the South Korean Cheonan cruiser. At least 46 seamen were lost. 

DEBKAfile's military sources reports fears that if no penalty is exacted from Pyongyang for its belligerent behavior, it will be encouraged to continue striking South Korea. 

...

DEBKAfile's military sources report that US Seventh Fleet headquarters at Yokosuka in Japan, together with the naval forces stationed there including the USS George Washington aircraft carrier. They have been covering South Korea's massive annual military exercises involving some 70,000 troops scheduled to last from Monday through Nov. 30. 

Our sources add that closely in tune with Pyongyang, Tehran will be encouraged by the Obama administration's inaction against North Korea to greater pugnacity against Israel whose position in the Middle East Iran sees as akin to that of South Korea in the Far East. Both are regarded in Iran as tied hand and foot by Washington and therefore in no position to defend themselves without the US sayso. 

Earlier, DEBKAfile report that Obama's lack of response to the Japanese call, despite the presence of 28,000 US troops on the Korean Demilitarized Zone border – even with limited military action - is bound to devalue the defensive umbrella against North Korea the US has pledged South Korea and Japan. 

US unresponsiveness is already resonating loudly in the Middle East and Persian Gulf which is beginning to take it as betokening feeble resolve in dealing with Iran and its nuclear weapons aspirations...

And it sure would be nice if the Chinese would grow up and handle this situation.  They're the ones that aspire to world leadership... and barely lifting a finger to handle a mess they helped create.

Hard to take their diplomacy seriously if they can't put a lid on this pugnacious crackpot and his reckless brinkmanship... now would be a good time- right here's their chance to be somebody...

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