Kim Yo-jong Threatens More Strike Weapons at the DMZ

North Korea is considering deploying more tactical strike means along its border with South Korea and resuming propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts across the Demilitarized Zone, Kim Yo-jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, has warned. Her statement, carried by state news agency KCNA on October 19, claimed that South Korean forces had aired 2,870 rounds of warning broadcasts and fired 201 warning shots between August 1 and October 17. Kim did not specify which weapons would be moved forward, how many, or when, and left other countermeasures unexplained. The precise tally highlights how closely the Korean People’s Army has tracked each South Korean response to its fortification work, and the threat raises the prospect of loudspeaker campaigns returning for the first time since both Koreas switched them off in 2025.

South Korea’s Ministry of National Defence responded on October 20 with a statement expressing grave concern over Kim’s criticism of what it called legitimate operations under the Armistice Agreement, stating: “We will retaliate decisively should North Korea engage in further provocations using our legitimate measures as a pretext.” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Jin Yong-sung visited a central frontline unit the same day and ordered operations to reinforce the South’s initiative in the DMZ, which a military source told Yonhap News Agency could include new patrol routes and retractable guard posts. A ministry official said resuming the South’s own broadcasts was not being ruled out. The exchange coincides with South Korea’s annual Hoguk field exercise, which began on October 19 with U.S. Forces Korea taking part, and with the Keen Sword drills in Japan.

Tensions have risen since September 21, when mines exploded in the western sector of the DMZ and injured three South Korean soldiers, two of them seriously. A joint investigation with the U.S.-led United Nations Command found that the North Korean plastic anti-personnel mines had been buried about 10 metres south of the Military Demarcation Line within the previous 12 months, findings Pyongyang has denied. The South Korean military has reported around 50 crossings of the line this year by North Korean soldiers building barriers, and the North has continued to expand its missile testing, with one ballistic missile launched on October 12 flying more than 900 kilometres according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In August 2015, mine blasts that maimed two South Korean soldiers led Seoul to resume broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, bringing the two sides close to armed conflict.

The tactical strike means Kim cited are widely understood to include the new-type tactical ballistic missile launchers that Kim Jong Un handed to frontline units at a ceremony in Pyongyang on August 4, 2024. State media reported the delivery of 250 launchers that day, quoting the leader as saying they would make tactical nuclear operations “more practical and efficient.” Analysts identified the vehicles as launchers for the Hwasong-11 family of short-range ballistic missiles, a family that analysts cited by the Associated Press credit with a range of up to 100 kilometres, enough to cover much of the Seoul capital area, where roughly half of South Korea’s 51 million people live. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said at the time that further monitoring was needed to confirm the systems’ operational readiness, and neither government has disclosed how many of the 250 launchers now sit within range of the border.