North Korea flies warplanes near South Korea after missile launches
Seoul (AP): North Korea flew 12 warplanes near its border with South Korea on Thursday, prompting the South to scramble 30 military aircraft in response, Seoul officials said.
The highly unusual incident came hours after North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea in its sixth round of missile tests in less than two weeks.
Eight North Korean fighter jets and four bombers flew in formation and were believed to have conducted air-to-surface firing drills, South Korea's military said.
The military said South Korea responded by scrambling 30 fighter jets and other warplanes, though they didn't engage in any clash with the North Korean aircraft.
The North Korean planes were probably dozens of kilometres away from the border, South Korean media said.
North Korea has previously sent military aircraft near the border, but the Yonhap news agency said this is likely the first time it has mobilised so many warplanes for such a provocative flight and firing exercises.
Tensions have risen sharply on the Korean Peninsula as North Korea's recent barrage of missile tests prompted South Korea, the United States and Japan to conduct joint drills in response.
Earlier on Thursday, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters. The launches came after the United States redeployed an aircraft carrier near the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea's launch of a nuclear-capable missile over Japan earlier this week.
North Korea has conducted a record number of missile tests this year.
South Korean officials said the North may further raise tensions by testing an intercontinental ballistic missile or conducting its first nuclear test explosion since 2017, following an old pattern of heightening animosities before trying to wrest outside concessions.
Some experts say North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is determined to expand his nuclear arsenal in defiance of international sanctions. They say North Korea's goal is to eventually win recognition as a legitimate nuclear state from the United States and the lifting of sanctions, though Washington and its allies have shown no sign of doing so.
The latest missiles were launched 22 minutes apart from North Korea's capital region and landed between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The first missile flew 350 kilometres (217 miles) and reached a maximum altitude of 80 kilometres (50 miles) and the second flew 800 kilometres (497 miles) with an apogee of 60 kilometres (37 miles).
Japanese Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the second missile was possibly launched on an irregular trajectory. It is a term that has been used to describe the flight characteristics of a North Korean weapon modelled after Russia's Iskander missile, which travels at low altitudes and is designed to be manoeuvrable in flight to improve its chances of evading missile defences.
US, South Korean and Japanese destroyers launched joint drills later on Thursday off the Korean Peninsula's east coast to horn their abilities to search, track and intercept North Korean ballistic missiles, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The US destroyer is part of the strike group led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which returned to the waters in what South Korea's military called an attempt to demonstrate the allies' firm will counter North's continued provocations and threats.
The strike group was in the area last week as part of previous drills between South Korea and the United States, and the allies' other training involving Japan.
North Korea considers such US-led drills near the peninsula as an invasion rehearsal and views training involving a US carrier more provocative.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida spoke by phone on Thursday and agreed that North Korea's recent missile tests are a serious, grave provocation that threatens international peace, according to Yoon's office.
Kishida said the two reaffirmed the importance of the deterrence capability of the Japan-US and South Korean-US alliances, as well as security cooperation among the three countries.
Moon Hong Sik, a South Korean Defence Ministry spokesperson, said North Korea's accelerating tests also reflect an urgency to meet Kim Jong Un's arms development goals.
Kim last year described an extensive wish list of advanced nuclear weapons systems, including more powerful ICBMs, multiwarhead missiles, underwater-launched nuclear missiles and tactical nuclear arms.
On Tuesday, North Korea staged its most provocative weapons demonstration since 2017, firing an intermediate-range missile over Japan, forcing the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and halt trains.
Experts said the weapon was likely a Hwasong-12 missile capable of reaching the US Pacific territory of Guam and beyond.
Other weapons tested in recent days included Iskander-like missiles and other ballistic weapons designed to strike key targets in South Korea, including US military bases there.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the redeployment of the Reagan strike group poses a serious threat to the stability of the situation on the Korean peninsula and in its vicinity.
The ministry said it strongly condemns US-led efforts at the UN Security Council to tighten sanctions on the North over its recent missile testing, which it described as a just counteraction to joint US-South Korean drills.
After the North's intermediate-range missile launch, the United States and South Korea also carried out their own live-fire drills that have so far involved land-to-land ballistic missiles and precision-guided bombs dropped from fighter jets.
The United States, Britain, France, Albania, Norway and Ireland called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. But the session on Wednesday ended with no consensus, underscoring a divide among the council's permanent members that have deepened over Russia's war on Ukraine.
Russia and China insisted during the meeting that US-led military exercises in the region had provoked North Korea into acting.
The United States and its allies expressed concern that the council's inability to reach a consensus on North Korea's record number of missile launches this year was emboldening North Korea and undermining the authority of the United Nations' most powerful body.
North Korea has fired more than 40 ballistic and cruise missiles over more than 20 launch events this year, using the stalled diplomacy with the United States and Russia's war on Ukraine as a window to speed up arms development.
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Israel launches first airstrike on Lebanon since ceasefire, accusing Hezbollah of breaching truce
Beirut, Nov 28: The Israeli military on Thursday said its warplanes fired on southern Lebanon after detecting Hezbollah activity at a rocket storage facility, the first Israeli airstrike a day after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took hold.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Israel's aerial attack, which came hours after the Israeli military said it fired on people trying to return to certain areas in southern Lebanon. Israel said they were violating the ceasefire agreement, without providing details. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded.
The back-to-back incidents stirred unease about the agreement, brokered by the United States and France, which includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah members are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
On Thursday, the second day of a ceasefire after more than a year of bloody conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon's state news agency reported that Israeli fire targeted civilians in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. Israel said it fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese Hezbollah group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.
