Rival Koreas trade artillery fire over broadcast

SEOUL — North and South Korea exchanged rocket and artillery fire across their tense border Thursday in their first major armed clash in five years, the South’s Defense Ministry said.

North Korea said it was convening its Central Military Commission — a top decision-making body run by the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un — on Thursday night after it threatened more military action unless the South stopped broadcasting propaganda.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted unnamed military sources as saying that the second attack involved several rounds from a 76.2-mm direct-fire weapon.

North Korea said the South fired 36 artillery shells across the border, some of them falling near its guard posts but not causing injuries, the headquarters of the North’s military, known as the People’s Army, said in a statement carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.

In a radio message sent to the South about an hour after the attacks, the North’s military warned that if Seoul did not turn off and dismantle its loudspeakers within 48 hours, it would “embark upon military actions,” the South Korean Defense Ministry said.