South Korea's military was put on high alert on Monday in the wake of the Communist North's threat to open fire on South Korean territory if propaganda leaflets were sent across the border.
The Fighters for Free North Korea, a civic group composed of North Korean defectors now living in the South, had planned to scatter 200,000 leaflets by balloons from Imjingak, close to the border town of Paju near the demilitarized zone on Monday.
But Police and troops blocked highway exits to the launch site close the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas, and prevented activists from entering there.
The event organizer Park Sang-hak had vowed that the activists would go ahead with their plan even though civilians were barred from entering Imjingak since Monday morning.
On Friday, North Korea's state news agency KCNA quoted its Army as saying that it would launch a "merciless military strike by the western front the moment a minor movement for the scattering is captured," and that "the surrounding area will become targets of direct firing of the Korean People's Army."
It evoked immediate response from Seoul, with Defense Minister Kim Kwan Jin telling the Parliament that his military was prepared to "completely destroy" the origin of a North Korean attack if it occurred.
The South's military has stepped up combat readiness by deploying artillery and tank brigades and combat air patrols by F-15K and KF-16, Pyongyang news agency reported on Monday quoting a military official.
Civic groups in the South have sent anti-Pyongyang leaflets in the past, which the North Korean government considers as psychological warfare and an attempt to topple its Communist regime.
It was the first unusually strong threat of an attack on Seoul by the Kim Jong Un regime since the Kim Jong Il era ended last year. Kim Jong Un, who succeeded Kim Jong Il in December, is seen as a moderate leader when compared to his father.
More than 23,500 North Koreans have so far defected to the South since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, most of them in the past ten years, according to the South's Unification Ministry.
North Koreans are attempting to flee their homeland due to a worsening economy and for "freedom from political oppression."
The Korean War, in which the U.S. troops fought on the side of South Korea, ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, hence North Korea technically remains at war with both sides.
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