S Korean military stages drill near tense sea border with DPRK

South Korea conducted a military drill Friday on a western border island near a tense border with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, local media reported. The Northwest Islands Defense Command, established in June in response to the DPRK's shelling of an inhabited South Korean island near the border, conducted its first drill on Baengyeong Island, one of the five front-line islands in the Yellow Sea. The exercise, joined by troops from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, mobilized KF-16 fighter jets and AH-1S attack helicopters, according to Yonhap News Agency. Following the shelling last November, which killed four South Koreans, the country has been seeking to boost its military presence on the border islands. The DPRK refuses to acknowledge the western maritime border, a scene of a few bloody naval skirmishes between the two Koreas.