Kim guides military drill near sea border with South Korea

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un has guided a military drill simulating an attack and seizure of a frontline South Korean island, Pyongyang’s state media said Saturday. The drill came as tensions grow ahead of an annual U.S.-South Korea joint Key Resolve/Foal Eagle military exercise that is reportedly to start next month. Artillery units were among the troops taking part in the drill on the islets of Mu and Jangjae “in the biggest hotspot in the southernmost part of southwestern front”, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The de-facto maritime boundary between the two Koreas - the Northern Limit Line - is not recognised by Pyongyang, which argues it was unilaterally drawn by US-led United Nations forces after the 1950-53 Korean War. The war ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war. North Korea launched winter drills in November last year and since then, Kim has inspected 10 different military units, according to South Korea’s defence ministry.

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