SEOUL — The
North Korean military said its
response to US-South Korean war drills would be “resolute and overwhelming”, state
media reported Monday.
اضافة اعلان
The warning came after a spate of North Korean
weapons tests last week — including 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.
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”, according to
the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
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 will respond to all “anti-DPRK war
drills” with “sustained, resolute and overwhelming” measures, it said.
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, according
to KCNA.
That mobilization prompted South Korea to scramble
fighter jets on Friday.
Images of North Korean military operations released
on Monday by KCNA showed missiles being fired from various undisclosed
locations, including some from mobile launchers.
Weak air force
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 AFP.
Compared with
North Korea’s ageing fleet, Vigilant Storm saw some of the most advanced US and
South Korean warplanes in action, including F-35 stealth fighters.
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.
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.
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