[Yonhap Photo]
A suspected North Korean drone mounted with a surveillance camera was found to have crashed into a mountain, military authorities in Seoul said as the two Koreas were locked in brisk espionage activities along the heavily guarded border.
Military investigators retrieved the drone Friday in the northeastern border town of Inje on the report from a local resident, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, adding the drone with a short tail wing was 1.8 meters long and 2.4 meters wide.
An initial field investigation found that the drone is suspected of being sent by North Korea because it is similar to one retrieved in 2014 on the front-line island of Baengnyeong near the disputed Yellow Sea border, the JCS said. A 62-year-old man told Yonhap News Agency that he discovered the azure-painted drone during his walk Thursday in a mountainous area.
Pyongyang has developed a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones. South Korea recovered several North Korean drones which crashed south of the border in 2014. A North Korean drone crossed the border in January last year and flew back quickly after South Korean troops fired shots.
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.
Pyongyang has never acknowledged the existence of spy drones flying across the border.
On May 23, South Korean soldiers fired warnings shots after spotting North Korean propaganda balloons flying into the southern side of the demilitarized zone which split the Korean peninsula following the 1950-53 Korean conflict. Two days later, North Korea accused Seoul Korea of opening fire at birds.
The cross-border flight of spy drones and propaganda balloons launched by each side has caused intermittent gunfire. In October 2014, North Korean troops opened fire in an attempt to shoot down a set of South Korean balloons, sparking a brief exchange of fire. In recent months, Pyongyang has bombarded South Korean border areas with its own propaganda leaflets.
Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
