Special to WorldTribune.com

North Korea on Aug. 14 denied it planted landmines inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that injured two South Korean soldiers.

South Korean military officials blamed Pyongyang for placing the mines in a neutral area of the DMZ. Analysis by the U.S.-led United Nations Command determined from the mine debris that they were North Korean “wooden box” landmines placed on a known South Korean patrol path.

“The investigation determined that the devices were recently emplaced,” the UN Command said, ruling out the possibility they were old mines displaced over the border by shifting soil patterns.

“If South Korea wants to keep insisting this was our army’s act, then show a video to prove it. If you don’t have it, don’t ever say ‘North Korean provocation’ again out of your mouth,” North Korea’s state KCNA news agency quoted the country’s National Defense Commission as saying.

Seoul has said that due to low visibility from heavy rain and thick woods, surveillance cameras could not capture North Korean soldiers planting the mines.

In retaliation for the mine blasts, South Korea has ordered border propaganda operations against North Korea to resume. Seoul’s Defense Ministry said banks of loudspeakers positioned at various spots along the border would be switched on for the first time since 2004 and used to blast out messages denouncing North Korean provocations.

The order came hours after South Korea said the North would pay a “harsh price” for allegedly planting the landmines that detonated on Aug. 4 in the South Korean half of the DMZ. One soldier injured by the mine blasts underwent a double leg amputation, while another had one leg removed.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official said resuming border propaganda operations was only a “first step.”

The move to switch the propaganda loudspeakers back on is sure to infuriate Pyongyang, which already complains regularly about Seoul’s refusal to ban activists floating anti-North leaflets across the border via helium balloons.

  UN Command: DMZ mines which injured S. Korean soldiers ‘recently emplaced’, United Nations Command, WorldTribune.com