S. Korea braces for the next attack

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea — Choi Cheol-yeong vividly recalls the shock and fear that he felt during North Korea’s lethal bombardment of this small island, and says his nerves remain on edge because he thinks another attack will come, possibly during South Korean artillery drills this week.

“I have a bad feeling that something might happen, but we’re ready if it does,” said Mr. Choi, a town official here, pointing to a filing cabinet near his desk, where he keeps a gas mask.

Two weeks after a North Korean artillery barrage shattered the tiny fishing community on Yeonpyeong Island, and raised fears across South Korea about its heavily armed neighbor, many South Koreans are convinced that the North will strike again, and a parlor game of sorts has developed around the question of where.

South Korean and foreign political analysts say the North is growing more desperate, facing food shortages in the winter and at the same time trying to secure the succession of the youngest son of North Korea’s ailing dictator, Kim Jong-il. In that situation, experts say, the government typically resorts to hostile and provocative military actions as the preferred way to pressure the economically wealthier and thus more vulnerable South into giving the aid and investment that North Korea needs to survive.

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