Dozens of troops were deployed for the military's alleged operation to send 18 drones to North Korea over 11 occasions ahead of former President Yoon Suk Yeol's botched martial law bid in late 2024, a document showed Thursday. A total of 59 soldiers from the military's front-line drone units were mobilized for the operation conducted to provoke the North and use it as a pretext for the short-lived martial law imposition, according to an internal military document provided by Rep. Choo Mi-ae of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea. Under the operation conducted between October and November 2024, just a month before the martial law imposition in December the same year, the military allegedly sent a total of 18 drones carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets into Pyongyang and other major North Korean cities over 11 occasions. Details of the operation remained confidential only among a small number of relevant senior officials and were not shared with the military's front-line units as well as the United States or the U.S.-led United Nations Command, which administers the armistice. "(The move) cou