[Yonhap News Photo]
Cross-border tensions soared Tuesday when South Korean troops fired a volley of warning shots at an unidentified object flying across the heavily guarded border with North Korea, military authorities said.
Warnings shots were fired when the object was spotted flying southward across the border at around 4 pm (0700 GMT) in the northeastern border town of Chorwon, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, adding it has been analyzing the type of the flying object.
South Korean soldiers fired about 90 K-3 machinegun rounds,
Yonhap News Agency said, adding border guards bolstered vigilance on suspicions that North Korea may have sent down a military drone.
A North Korean drone was spotted on radar in January last year when it crossed the border and flew back quickly after South Korean troops fired shots.
Pyongyang has developed a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. In recent years, South Korea has recovered four crashed North Korean drones which slipped through air defenses south of the border between the two Koreas, which are still technically at war with no peace treaty signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
North Korean drones are nowhere near as sophisticated as those used by the United States, deployed mainly for short-range missions to take pictures, but concerns are growing that they could be weaponized for future attacks.
Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
