South and North Korean soldiers exchange fire at border; no casualties reported in South
There are a lot of things that can happen when North & South Korea begin posturing, and most of them are bad- particularly if you consider that Kim Jong-il may have the Bomb. This latest incident along the DMZ will not likely be interpreted as a positive exchange of ideas.
SEOUL, South Korea -- South and North Korean soldiers briefly exchanged machine gun fire along their border on today, but the South Korean military said it did not suffer casualties in the shootout.
It was not immediately known whether any North Korean troops were injured or killed in the firefight in the Demilitarized Zone, a buffer area that was created at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War to keep opposing armies apart.
Tension on the Korean Peninsula is high over North Korea's suspected development of nuclear weapons, and such shooting incidents in the DMZ are rare. In recent years, however, reconciliation efforts have moved forward despite such outbreaks of violence.
In Washington, the Pentagon had no comment.
North Korean soldiers fired four rounds at 6:10 a.m., and South Korean soldiers fired 17 rounds in response one minute later, said Maj. Lee of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. He speculated the North Koreans were using machine guns, and said the South was using a machine gun called a K-3.
Under terms of the armistice that ended the Korean War, North and South Korean soldiers can patrol in the DMZ, but they are not allowed to carry heavy weapons such as machine guns.
Fifty years of an absence of war hardly passes for peace. The two Koreas are one unfortunate incident away from starting what could well become WWIII- not a prospect anyone relishes. North Korea may just be reckless, desperate, and testosterone-fueled enough to push things over the edge. With one of the world's largest (albeit poorly fed) armies, no one should be taking the latest incident lightly.
