South Korean and US troops launched computerized military drills yesterday despite North Korea warning it would retaliate with a “merciless counterblow” over the exercises Pyongyang considers rehearsal for invasion.
The 11-day drills, dubbed “Ulchi Freedom Guardian,” are annual war games that involve about 56,000 South Korean soldiers and 30,000 US troops, South Korea’s Defense Ministry and the US command in Seoul said yesterday.
No field training is involved in the war games, in which alliance soldiers, mostly senior officers, sit at computers to practice how they engage in battles and hone their decision-making capabilities.
The exercises are designed to improve the allies’ joint capability to defend the South and respond to any potential provocations, the US military said in a statement last month.
Washington and Seoul engaged in joint naval drills last month off South Korea’s east coast they called a show of unity after a South Korean warship was sunk in March. The allies blame a North Korea torpedo attack, but Pyongyang denies involvement.
Pyongyang has for years threatened the South with destruction, though it has never followed through with an all-out military assault since the Korean War ended in 1953.
The US stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea and tens of thousands more in the region.
Seoul and Washington say the routine military drills are purely defensive, while North Korea calls them preparation for an attack.
“It is another grave military provocation aimed at ... igniting a nuclear war” against North Korea, Pyongyang’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried yesterday by the official Korean Central News Agency.
The country’s military threatened to deal a “merciless counterblow” to the US and South Korea, “the severest punishment no one has ever met in the world.”
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