North Korea pressed ahead with a live-fire artillery drill in a tense border zone on Thursday despite US and South Korean criticism, and separately announced it had detained an American citizen.
The communist state fired shells into the sea near its disputed maritime border with South Korea for a second day, Seoul’s military said.
Pyongyang’s official news agency said an American was under investigation after being detained on Monday for illegally crossing the border from China — the second time in a month it has reported such a case.
The shells from shore batteries landed near a South Korean island but Seoul said none fell in South Korean waters.
On Wednesday the North had lobbed more than 80 shells near the flashpoint frontier and South Korean Marines fired 100 warning shots in response.
The North describes the drill, which started a day after it declared “no sail” zones in the area, as a routine military exercise.
But the western sea border, which it refuses to recognise, was the scene of deadly naval battles in 1999 and 2002. In the latest naval clash last November, a fire fight left a North Korean patrol boat in flames.
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