North Korea threatens to restart propaganda broadcasts and deploy more weapons at border with South

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea threatened Monday to resume propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts and deploy more weapons along the border with South Korea, as the rivals remain locked in animosities over last month’s mine blasts that injured three South Korean soldiers.

Earlier this month, South Korea formally blamed North Korea-planted mines for the Sept. 21 blasts at the border, urging the North to apologize and remove other mines. That announcement came after North Korea denied responsibility for the explosions and warned of strong retaliation if provoked.

On Monday, Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accused South Korea of firing warning shots and issuing warning broadcasts numerous times at the border since August under “such an unreasonable pretext” that North Korean soldiers crossed the border. She said that such provocations “have gone beyond the red line” since the mine blasts.

“A grave situation is prevailing along the southern border due to the reckless behavior of the ROK military gangsters,” Kim Yo Jong said, referring South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.

She said the North Korean military was considering “deploying more tactical strike means along the southern border as a preemptive and suppressive measure to deal with contingency, and of resuming the loudspeaker broadcasting against the ROK.”

In recent years, tensions along the Korean border, one of the world's most heavily fortified, have increased as North Korea added mines, barbed wire fences, anti-tank barriers and other front-line fortifications in line with its policy of terminating ties with South Korea.

South Korea’s military earlier said North Korean soldiers violated the border’s military demarcation line 50 times this year during their fortification works. South Korea’s military said it responded by firing warning shots and making warning broadcasts. It didn’t immediately respond to the latest North Korean warning.

In 2015, mine blasts blamed on North Korea that maimed two South Korean soldiers pushed the Koreas to the brink of an armed conflict, after South Korea resumed front-line loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts for the first time in 11 years.

Loudspeaker broadcasts are one of the old-fashioned, Cold War-era psychological warfare campaigns the two Koreas have occasionally used against each other in times of confrontation.

Since taking office last year, South Korea's liberal government, led by President Lee Jae Myung, halted such broadcasts as part of efforts to improve ties with North Korea. North Korea later stopped its own broadcasts.

North Korea has recently dialed up weapons testing activities in a likely bid to pressure the United States to make bigger concessions, after President Donald Trump renewed his efforts to restore diplomacy with Kim Jong Un.

FILE - A soldier stands at a North Korean military guard post next to loudspeakers, seen from Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, on Feb. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - This photo provided by the North Korean government, Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, delivers a speech during a national meeting against the coronavirus, in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Aug. 10, 2022. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)

North Korea's Kaepoong village is seen from the Peace Observation Post near the border with North Korea, in Gwanghwa, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A North Korean soldier stands at a North Korean military guard post near the border with North Korea, in Paju, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A North Korean military guard post is seen from the Peace Observation Post near the border with North Korea, in Gwanghwa, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Saudi Arabia says it has executed 2 Bangladeshi nationals over “indecent acts” inside a mosque in Mecca. Bangladesh said it had not been informed of the executions beforehand.

Meanwhile, Israeli police have arrested 10 suspects in connection of a wave of settler violence, including against a U.S. journalist and European diplomats in the occupied West Bank over the weekend.

Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Monday. Read our full coverage here.

Saudi Arabia has executed two Bangladeshi nationals after they were convicted of committing indecent acts in a mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca.

Bangladesh said it was not informed before the sentences were carried out and has sought information from Saudi Arabia.

The Bangladeshis, a man and a woman, were executed on Wednesday after their death sentences were upheld by the highest court and a royal decree authorized their executions, the Saudi Interior Ministry said.

The statement said they were executed due to “the gravity and seriousness of their actions in violating the sanctity of both time and place.” The ministry did not elaborate.

Bangladeshi foreign ministry official Shama Obaed said her ministry has sent a letter to the Saudi government seeking “detailed information.”

Saudi authorities on Saturday also executed five Saudi nationals who were convicted of terrorism-related charges, the ministry said.

The ministry said the men were charged with joining a foreign terrorist group, opening fire on security forces, possession of weapons and funding terrorist attacks inside Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most prolific users of the death penalty, with 356 executions in 2025, behind only China and Iran, according to Amnesty International.

So far this year, the kingdom executed over 170 people, according to the interior ministry.

Ten suspects were arrested on Monday following a string of violent attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, police said, after the attacks led to heavy international criticism against Israel.

Israeli police did not identified the suspects or their roles in the attacks, which also targeted Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine and European diplomats. The attacks came during a spike of settler violence during the annual olive harvest.

Levine was beaten Friday by a crowd of young male settlers in the village of Abu Falah, leaving her with several broken ribs and vertebrae. A day later, masked settlers attacked a group of European diplomats and others visiting the Christian village of Taybeh.

Settler violence has surged in recent years, and rights groups say that attackers are rarely arrested or punished for attacks on Palestinians.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels struck a military camp for government forces in southern Yemen, killing at least 20 soldiers, Yemeni military officials said, in one of the deadliest attacks in the recent surge in fighting.

The rebels fired ballistic missiles on the al-Alam military camp in the southern province of Shabwa in an attack that also wounded at least two dozen troops. The casualties were primarily new recruits, one of the officials told The Associated Press.

The military officials with the internationally recognized government of Yemen spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The attack was part of a recent escalation in fighting, which began months ago as tensions spiked in the wider Iran-U.S. conflict. The escalation between the Houthis and forces of the Saudi-backed government shattered a 2022 ceasefire deal that largely stopped fighting in Yemen’s civil war.

— By Samy Magdy

An adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei says Iran will respond forcefully to any renewed U.S. attack.

Conservative politician Mohammad Mokhber said Iran would strike “nine countries” if Iranian bases or “petrochemical” facilities were struck again.

“If they want to hit a base, we have to hit the bases of nine countries,” he said Monday in recorded comments posted by Tasnim, a semiofficial news agency close with the Revolutionary Guard.

The report did not name the nine countries.

Mojtaba Khamenei was named Iran’s supreme leader after his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed by Israel on the first day of the war. The younger Khamenei has not been seen or heard publicly since his appointment.

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This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.

Palestinian Amal Abu Awad, 62, collects olives during the harvest in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)