The North Korean military said its response to US-South Korean war drills would be “resolute and overwhelming,” state media reported yesterday.
The warning came after a spate of North Korean weapons tests last week — including one involving an intercontinental ballistic missile — as the US and South Korea conducted their biggest-ever air force exercise.
The US and South Korea have warned that such missile launches could culminate in a nuclear test by North Korea.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The North Korean military, formally known as the Korean People’s Army (KPA), said it was responding to “Vigilant Storm” — the US-South Korean exercise — describing it as “an open provocation,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Vigilant Storm was “aimed at intentionally escalating the tension in the region and a dangerous war drill of very high aggressive nature directly targeting” North Korea, the KPA said.
North Korea would respond to all “anti-DPRK war drills” with “sustained, resolute and overwhelming” measures, it said, referring to the North’s official name.
The US has dismissed criticism of the exercise as North Korean propaganda, saying it posed no threat to other nations.
The KPA said it conducted operations, including the launch of tactical ballistic missiles that simulated attacks on air force bases, and practiced shooting down enemy aircraft.
One ballistic missile was launched to test “a special functional warhead paralyzing the operation command system of the enemy,” the KPA said, without providing any further details about that weapon.
The North Korean air force also conducted a “large-scale all-out combat sortie operation,” involving 500 planes, the KCNA reported.
That mobilization prompted South Korea to scramble fighter jets on Friday.
Images of North Korean military operations released yesterday by the KCNA showed missiles being fired from undisclosed locations, including some from mobile launchers.
Experts say Pyongyang is particularly sensitive about drills such as Vigilant Storm because its air force is one of the weakest links in its military, lacking high-tech jets and properly trained pilots.
The details of North Korea’s operations last week indicate the importance it places on destroying air bases in the South, said Cheong Seong-chang, a researcher at the Sejong Institute in Seoul.
“North Korea considers it important to strike and neutralize air bases first because their air power is weak,” Cheong told reporters.
Compared with North Korea’s aging fleet, Vigilant Storm saw some of the most advanced US and South Korean warplanes in action, including F-35 stealth jets.
The exercise was meant to run from Monday to Friday last week, but Washington and Seoul extended it by a day in response to the flurry of North Korean missile launches.
Two US Air Force B-1Bs — long-range heavy bombers — joined the drills in a show of force.
US-South Korea joint drills have long sparked strong reactions from North Korea, which sees them as rehearsals for an invasion.
Pyongyang has especially condemned past deployments of US strategic weapons such as long-range bombers and aircraft carrier strike groups.
Parts of the KPA statement, including the claim that it could counter the “theory of superiority” of US and South Korean air forces, were domestic propaganda, said Park Won-gon, a professor at the Ewha University in Seoul.
“It is saying that North Korea responded sufficiently against the largest joint drills between Seoul and Washington and that they prevailed,” Park said.
South Korea began its annual Taegeuk computer-simulated military exercise yesterday, which aims to improve its ability to respond to North Korean threats.
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