Between confessions of impotence and attempted political recovery, Seoul seemed embarrassed, Tuesday, December 27, by the incursion, the day before, of North Korean drones. ” We are sorry. Our military detected and tracked them, but we failed to shoot them down”acknowledged, in a statement, Lieutenant General Kang Shin-chul, director of operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The day before, five North Korean drones had crossed the demilitarized zone, the DMZ, separating the two Koreas. One of them flew over northern Seoul before crossing the border again three hours later. The other four were detected over the island of Ganghwa, Inchon and Gimpo, east and northeast of the capital, before disappearing from radar. It was the first North Korean drone incursion since 2017.
The South Korean army appeared helpless because it does not have the capacity to identify drones less than three meters long, admitted Colonel Lee Seong-jun, public relations officer of the JCS. However, the North Korean devices measured less than two meters. Their detection was followed by the emergency take-off of about twenty fighters and attack helicopters, with one incident: a KA-1 light attack plane crashed shortly after leaving the runway in the county of Hoengseong, in Gangwon, in the west of the country. The pilot and his crew made it out alive.
South Korean military reprisals
Despite this mobilization, said Colonel Lee, North Korean drones could not be fired upon over inhabited areas. However, the helicopters fired a hundred 20 mm shells in their direction, without hitting them. And the South Korean military sent drones to the DMZ in retaliation. For the first time – officially – some entered the North to “surveillance operations of enemy military installations”.
The incursion of North Korean craft had other consequences: flights departing from Incheon and Gimpo international airports, both located near the island of Ganghwa, were suspended for forty-eight minutes at the Army request. It is the first time that civilian flights have been interrupted due to a South Korean military operation.
“This incident shows that our soldiers are not ready”strongly reacted the conservative president, Yoon Seok-youl, who attributed the responsibility for this lack of preparation to his predecessor, the democrat Moon Jae-in (2017-2022), and to his policy of reconciliation with the North. “I believe our people now see the danger of a policy that relies only on North Korean goodwill and inter-Korean military agreements,” did he declare.
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