South Korea blames North Korean mines for border blast injuries and demands apology

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s military said Monday it concluded North Korea planted mines that injured three South Korean soldiers at their heavily fortified border last month, urging the North to apologize and remove other mines.

The announcement came days after North Korea denied responsibility for the Sept. 21 blasts and threatened “merciless” retaliation if provoked over the case. It followed South Korea's earlier, preliminary finding that said there was a “very high possibility” that mines buried by North Korea caused the explosions.

On Monday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it reached a final conclusion that North Korean mines planted just south of the border exploded and injured the three soldiers who were working on creating a patrol route in a densely vegetated area. It cited a joint investigation of the site with the American-led U.N. Command, forensic analysis of TNT and other substances collected from the South Korean soldiers’ uniforms and one other North Korean mine discovered days after the blast.

“Our military strongly urges North Korea to offer a sincere apology to our injured soldiers and immediately remove the mines that it installed in violation of an armistice agreement" that ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War, Lt. Gen. Kwon Dae-won, vice chairman of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a televised briefing.

The armistice agreement prohibits both sides from committing any hostile act “within, from, or against” the Demilitarized Zone, a border buffer zone, and bans military or civilian personnel from crossing the military demarcation line without authorization from the armistice commission.

Despite its name, the DMZ is one of the world's most heavily armed border areas, with an estimated 2 million mines littered inside and along the zone. North Korea in recent years has added mines, barbed wire fences, anti-tank barriers and other front-line fortifications along the border, as leader Kim Jong Un declared South Korea his country’s main enemy.

South Korea’s military said North Korean soldiers violated the border's military demarcation line 17 times last year and 50 times this year during their border fortification works. South Korea responded by firing warning shots. In November 2025, South Korea proposed talks on clarifying the borderline, but North Korea didn’t respond.

Kwon said the South Korean military removed a North Korean minefield around the blast site on Monday and will remove other North Korean minefields placed south of the border unless North Korea voluntarily eliminates them.

South Korea's military earlier said it would take unspecified corresponding steps against North Korea if the North is conclusively found responsible for the mine blasts. But South Korea didn't immediately announce any substantial punitive steps on Monday.

In 2015, mine blasts at the border blamed on North Korea pushed the two Koreas to the brink of an armed conflict, after South Korea's then conservative government resumed front-line propaganda broadcasts for the first time in 11 years.

Kim's sister and senior official, Kim Yo Jong, last week called the preliminary South Korean assessment on the blasts a “conspiratorial farce" and vowed to take “immediate and merciless retaliatory action” if South Korea opens fire at North Korean soldiers fortifying the border.

The latest mine explosions came at a delicate time when South Korea's liberal government is making efforts to coordinate a resumption of talks between North Korea and the U.S., hoping that would help restart its own talks with the North and promote peace on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has been shunning all forms of dialogue with South Korea and the U.S. since Kim Jong Un’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump fell apart in 2019.

North Korea said Saturday it test-fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile that it claimed cannot be intercepted because of its low-altitude maneuverability and artificial intelligence capabilities. South Korea's Defense Ministry responded that the South Korean and U.S. militaries are capable of intercepting that missile.

Lt. Gen. Kwon Dae-won, vice chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks during a briefing at the Defense Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are holding relatively steady on Monday following the latest yo-yo moves for oil prices.

The S&P 500 ticked up by 0.3% and pulled within 0.7% of its all-time high set during the summer. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 135 points, or 0.3%, as of 10:10 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.5% and was on track to set its own record.

The moves were sharper in the oil market, where the price for a barrel of Brent crude swung between $100 and $103 in the morning. It was most recently at $101.94, down 0.3%.

Oil prices have been shaky because of uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow the global crude industry to return to normal. That in turn has helped push up yields in the bond market, and the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield edged up to 5.29% from 5.28% late Friday. It’s near its highest level since 2002.

High yields can slow the economy by making it more expensive for everyone to borrow money, while also making investors feel less willing to pay high prices for stocks and other investments.

Another factor that's been pushing up yields is the strength of the U.S. economy, which grew during the spring because of continued spending by businesses on AI data centers. U.S. consumers also keep spending and driving the economy, even though they say they're getting more frustrated by the high inflation that's squeezing their finances.

A report on Monday gave a mixed update on the strength of the U.S. economy. It said that activity for real estate, transportation, finance and other businesses in the services industries grew in September for a 27th straight month. But the growth was not quite as strong as economists expected.

The report from the Institute for Supply Management also said that prices U.S. services businesses are paying for materials and services grew at a faster rate, which could be a discouraging signal for upcoming inflation for everyone.

The general expectation on Wall Street is that the Federal Reserve will hike its main interest rate at least once by the end of the year in hopes of reining in the fast increases for the cost of living. The Fed raised its federal funds rate last month for the first time in three years.

On Wall Street, a couple buyout announcements helped support stocks.

RXO jumped 22.5% after C.H. Robinson Worldwide said it would buy the truck brokerage business in a deal where RXO investors could get $30.25 in cash for each of their shares. C.H. Robinson fell 11.9% for the largest loss in the S&P 500.

PTC leaped 34.9% for the biggest gain in the index after Schneider Electric of France said it would pay $205 in cash for each of the software company’s shares in a deal valuing it at about $22.6 billion.

In stock markets abroad, France’s CAC 40 fell 1.1% for one of the world’s bigger losses. Worries have been rising about the French government’s big debt and its strained budget.

On the winning side of the globe was Japan, where Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 2.4% on strength for technology stocks.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.

FILE - The New York Stock Exchange is shown in New York's Financial District on Dec. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

FILE - Signs mark the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in New York's Financial District on Wednesday Dec.11, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)