A South Korean military official says North Korea deliberately fired artillery rounds across the Yellow Sea border on Monday to provoke the South.
 
The official said on Wednesday that the North fired around 100 shells toward South Korea's Baengnyeong Island near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the sea border separating the two Koreas, as part of a planned provocation.
 
The official said the North has been conducting live-fire drills since last fall, and it has often made provocations at sites where it carried out drills. The official added the South is closely watching the North’s recent military drills that target the South’s guard posts and general outposts.
 
Another military official said the North carried out live-fire drills near the NLL to calculate from which spots and from what angle it can hit warships south of the border.