Repel Foreign Drones With Gunfire, Taiwan's Ministry Of Defense Calls It For Entering A Forbidden Area: Belongs To China?

JAKARTA - Taiwan's Ministry of Defense said on Thursday it had repelled an unidentified aircraft, suspected to be a drone, that flew Wednesday night over the Kinmen Islands region by firing flares on Thursday.

Major General Chang Zone-sung of the Army's Kinmen Defense Command told Reuters that Chinese drones came in pairs and flew into the Kinmen area twice on Wednesday evening, at around 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. local time.

"We immediately fired flares to warn and chase them away. After that, they turned around. They entered our restricted area and that's why we dispersed them", he said.

The heavily fortified Kinmen Islands are off the southeast coast of China, near the city of Xiamen.

"We have standard operating procedures. We will react if they come in", Chang stressed, adding that the alert level there remained normal.

General Chang said he believed the drone was meant to gather intelligence about Taiwan's security deployments on its outlying islands.

Last week, Taiwan's military fired a beacon to warn off a drone that was "glaring" at the Matsu islands off the coast of China's Fujian Province, while investigating its defenses, Taiwan's defense ministry said.

Taiwan itself has stepped up its preparedness as China conducts a series of military exercises, in response to a visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday-Wednesday.