[imagesource:gencraft/ai]

The enemy shinanigans between North and South Korea are laughable at best – when there isn’t a very serious bomb or missile threat, that is.

North Korea’s most bizarre provocation against its rival in years included flying hundreds of balloons carrying trash and manure toward South Korea.

This has forced the South’s military to mobilise chemical and explosive response teams to recover objects and debris in different parts of the country.

The balloon campaign came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged his military scientists to overcome a failed satellite launch and continue developing space-based reconnaissance capabilities, which he described as crucial for countering US and South Korean military activities, state media said Wednesday, per CBS News.

In a speech Tuesday, Kim called the South Korean response “hysterical insanity” and “a very dangerous provocation that cannot be ignored,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday.

The war-divided rivals have been going at it, with North Korea flying large numbers of balloons carrying trash toward the South since Tuesday night. This is apparently in retaliation against South Korean activists for flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border before.

In a statement issued over the weekend, North Korean Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang Il said the North was planning to scatter “mounds of wastepaper and filth” over border areas and other parts of South Korea, in what he described as “tit-for-tat” action against the leafletting by South Korean activists.

Image: South Korea Defense Ministry / AP

The South’s military said about 260 North Korean balloons were found in various parts of the country as of Wednesday afternoon and were being recovered by military rapid response and explosive clearance teams. Civilians were urged not to touch the objects flown from the North and to report to the military or police after discovering them.

The trash bags were scattered across highways and roads in different parts of the country, with some evidence of a timer being found on the balloons to make them pop midair. Local media reports said some balloons even carried toilet paper and suspected animal faeces into the South. There was no damage reported this time, but similar North Korean balloon activities damaged cars and other property in 2016.

Image: South Korea Defense Ministry / AP

Tensions between the Koreas have reached their highest point in years, driven by an increase in both Kim’s weapons tests and South Korea’s joint military exercises with the US and Japan since 2022.

[source:cbsnews]