Patience with North Korea has snapped among many South Koreans and a martial mood is spreading among its leaders, military brass and public after Pyongyang's deadly artillery strikes last week.

Reflecting the popular sentiment, a grim-faced President Lee Myung-Bak in a national address Monday called the strikes "a crime against humanity" and vowed to make sure the North "pays a dear price" for any further provocations.

A new poll found that 80 percent of South Koreans think the military should have hit back harder last Tuesday, when it returned artillery fire but shied away from air strikes, said the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

Over the years Seoul has fumed, but usually refrained from retaliating, as the regime of Kim Jong-Il staged nuclear tests, fired long-range missiles and -- just weeks ago -- showed off a new uranium enrichment plant.

Most South Koreans, especially the younger generations, have long shrugged off the Pyongyang's Cold War-style vitriol and verbal attacks which label them "warmongers" and "the US imperialists' puppet forces".

Agents from the North blew up a South Korean airliner in 1987, killing 115 people. Pyongyang has also been blamed by a multinational panel for the March sinking of a South Korean corvette, the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors.

But many believe North Korea staged its most brazen provocation yet when it rained 80 shells and rockets on to the South's border island of Yeonpyeong, killing two marines and two construction workers.

The first artillery attack on a civilian area in the South since the 1950-53 war reduced two dozen buildings to smouldering ruins and sparked a panicked exodus of almost all of the island's 1,500 residents.

At the funeral for the two marines Saturday, Marine Corps commander Lieutenant General Yoo Nak-Joon vowed to "repay North Korea a hundred- and thousand-fold" for their deaths.

The government has announced it will beef up island defences, reform the military and change its rules of engagement, which have so far strongly emphasised the avoidance of escalation.

But military analysts warn that another Korean war would bring a nightmare scenario of a devastated Korean peninsula and one million deaths.

Pyongyang has claimed it only retaliated last Tuesday after its "superhuman" patience had been broken by the South firing shells into waters that the North claims as its own during an artillery drill.

Many South Koreans believe it is they who have been turning the other cheek.

Korea Policy Research Centre president Yo Ho-Yeol said: "Even until the Cheonan incident, public sentiment was still divided between criticising the North and criticising our own government's hardline stance (on the North).

"Now the public sentiment is clearly dominated by anger towards the North. And a majority of the public wants strong retaliation against the North upon any further provocation."

Daniel Pinkston, Seoul office head of the International Crisis Group, said: "The South has been pretty tolerant, but how much can you tolerate? I don't know what the red line is, but if you don't retaliate, this is giving a green light to North Korea."

Many people strongly support a joint US-South Korean naval exercise under way which is spearheaded by an American aircraft carrier, even as Pyongyang warned that the drill brought the Koreas closer to "the brink of war".

A rally against the manoeuvre drew just 20 activists Sunday, with protesters holding a banner that read: "Stop the Korea-US drill that causes a vicious cycle of retaliation and confrontation!"

Their numbers have been dwarfed by far larger anti-Pyongyang rallies.

A leading North Korea expert, Peter Beck, told AFP that it might be time for South Korea to consider military action beyond its limited response Tuesday.

"This attack is different than the Cheonan sinking," said Beck, an international affairs fellow at Keio University in Tokyo.

"There is still at least a little ambiguity about what sank the Cheonan, but this artillery strike was not only a blatant violation of the armistice agreement, it was also against civilians.

"Therefore, Seoul should consider a retaliatory strike, either on the North Korean navy or on its nuclear facilities."

Many on the streets of Seoul feel the same way.

"We should not be afraid," said 77-year-old Cheon Sang-Yong, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars who now works part-time in a fast-food restaurant. "We should be prepared to fight back."

earlier related report
S.Korea says N.Korea will pay price for future provocations
Seoul (AFP) Nov 29, 2010 - A grim-faced South Korean leader vowed Monday to make North Korea "pay the price" for any future provocations following its deadly artillery attack, a day after China urged diplomacy to end the crisis.

"I can't help expressing my anger over the North Korean regime's cruelty that ignores even the lives of children," President Lee Myung-Bak said.

It was his first nationally televised address since the North launched a hail of rockets and shells six days ago, killing two civilians and two marines and setting homes ablaze on a South Korean border island.

"I will make sure we make the North pay the price for any (future) provocations," Lee said.

The North's sole major ally China called Sunday for emergency consultations early next month on the crisis between chief envoys to stalled six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.

Lee, in his seven-minute speech, made no reference to China's proposal but said it is "difficult to expect the North to abandon nuclear weapons and military brinkmanship".

South Koreans now know "that any more tolerance and patience will only fan bigger provocations", he said.

The president has come under pressure to take a tougher line after his military's counter-fire against the North's barrage was seen as feeble and led to the resignation of the defence minister.

The US and South Korea Monday began the second day of their biggest-ever naval exercise, aimed at sending a warning to the regime that has previously tested nuclear bombs and is blamed for sinking a South Korean warship in March.

The sinking killed 46 sailors and sharply raised tensions on the peninsula, but the artillery attack was the first on civilian areas in the South since the 1950-53 war.

"The North's provocation this time is in a different level than before," Lee said. "Making a military attack on civilians is an inhumane crime banned even during wartime.

"Now is the time to take actions rather than speaking 100 words," he said without elaborating on how he would respond to a future attack.

The South's military said Monday's joint naval drills, far south of the tense Yellow Sea border, would focus on defence against the North's submarines and guided missiles.

"Monday's drills include a live-fire exercise by multiple aircraft from the (US aircraft carrier) George Washington, which will shoot mock targets in waters," a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff told AFP.

Aegis-class destroyers would hone their capabilities to detect and destroy "hundreds of targets" in the sky, he said.

Eleven ships from the two navies plus aircraft and helicopters and more than 7,000 personnel are taking part in the four-day drill which began Sunday.

North Korea on Monday repeated its assertions that the drill is bringing the peninsula "to the brink of war" and called it a "grave provocation".

Ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said "it's a huge mistake if the US and South Korean enemies try to pressure and threaten us" with the US carrier.

"If they provoke us again we will wipe out the bases for invaders and will root out the source of war," it said.

The exercise has also riled China, which sees the Yellow Sea as its own backyard and on Sunday called for the emergency talks.

Its top envoy on North Korea, Wu Dawei, stressed his proposal did not constitute a formal revival of the six-party negotiations. But he said he hoped they would lead to such a resumption soon.

The United States had no immediate official reaction. But Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, warned against rewarding Pyongyang's "bad behaviour".

South Korea and Japan have also expressed caution. The other members of the six-party forum are Russia and the North itself.

Lee Nae-Young, politics professor at Korea University, said Lee was tacitly rejecting China's proposal by failing to mention it.

Baek Seung-Joo of the South's Korea Institute for Defence Analyses, told AFP Lee's vow to make the North pay the price "expresses quite a strong determination that South Korea would strike back at a level previously unseen in case of a further provocation from the North".

China has come under strong international pressure to use its relationship to restrain the reclusive communist North but has refrained from condemning Pyongyang.

Lee, in unusually frank comments to visiting Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo on Sunday, urged China to take "a fairer and more responsible stance in its relations with the two Koreas".