The US is to send stealth fighters to participate in a large-scale air combat exercise with South Korea next month, the Pentagon said yesterday, in a new show of force aimed at North Korea.
The massive five-day annual exercise comes as Washington pushes what US President Donald Trump has called a “maximum pressure campaign” against Pyongyang over its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.
The exercise, named Vigilant Ace, starts on Dec. 4 with 12,000 US personnel and an unspecified number of South Korean personnel flying more than 230 aircraft at eight US and South Korean military bases.
Six F-22 Raptor stealth aircraft are to be deployed to South Korea for the exercise, a US Air Force spokesman told reporters.
The supersonic Raptor is one of the most advanced warplanes in the world, capable of providing what its maker Lockheed Martin calls “unprecedented air dominance.”
“This realistic air combat exercise is designed to enhance interoperability between US and Republic of Korea forces and increase the combat effectiveness of both nations,” the US Seventh Air Force said in a statement, referring to South Korea by its official name.
Pyongyang routinely condemns such exercises, labeling them preparations for war.
Local media reported that the US warplanes would conduct precision strike drills with South Korean fighters.
North Korea has carried out a flurry of missile tests this year — including intercontinental ballistic variants apparently capable of hitting the US mainland — and tested what it claimed was a thermonuclear weapon in September.
The tests have prompted shows of force and sanctions from Washington.
Trump on Monday declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, adding the country back to a US blacklist Pyongyang was removed from nearly a decade ago.
Earlier this month, the US flew two B-1B Lancer supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula as part of a joint exercise with Japan and South Korea.
That was followed by a joint naval drill involving three US aircraft carriers and seven South Korean warships, the first such triple-carrier exercise in the region in a decade.
The US also unveiled fresh sanctions that target North Korean shipping, raising the pressure on Pyongyang in a bid to make it abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Pyongyang on Wednesday said the listing was a “serious provocation,” warning that sanctions would never force it to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
China, the North’s sole ally, has also said the new US sanctions — which also target Chinese companies doing business with the pariah state — are “wrong.”
Russia on Thursday said that the US decision to add North Korea to its terror blacklist was a public relations move that could cause the situation on the peninsula to escalate into a global “catastrophe.”
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