After North Korean strike, South Korean leader threatens 'retaliation'

Hours after North Korea's deadly artillery attacks Tuesday, South Korea's president said "enormous retaliation" is needed to stop Pyongyang's incitement, but international diplomats urgently appealed for restraint.
"The provocation this time can be regarded as an invasion of South Korean territory," President Lee Myung-bak said at the headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff here, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
The incident -- in which two South Korean marines died -- is "the first direct artillery attack on South Korean territory since the Korean War ended in an armistice" in 1953, Yonhap reported.
In addition to the slain marines, 15 South Korean soldiers and three civilians were wounded when North Korea fired about 100 rounds of artillery at Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, South Korean authorities said. Hundreds of island residents boarded boats and fled to safety, as the attack also set houses and forests on fire.
Some U.S. forces had been helping the South Koreans in a military training exercises, but were not in the shelled are
The provocation this time can be regarded as an invasion of South Korean territory.
--President Lee Myung-bak