SEOUL: America and South Korea held a joint air train involving US strategic bombers on Sunday (Feb 19), a day after North Korea fired a Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in a “sudden launching drill”.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Workers mentioned the train, the place South Korea’s F-35A, F-15K and US F-16 fighters escorted American B-1B bombers, demonstrated the allies’ “overwhelming” defence capabilities and readiness posture.
“(The train) strengthened the mixed operation functionality and affirmed the US’ ironclad dedication to the defence of the Korean Peninsula and the implementation of prolonged deterrence,” the South’s army mentioned in an announcement.
Japan’s Fuji Information Community mentioned Japan and the US have been additionally more likely to conduct a joint air drill as early as Sunday afternoon.
The US-South Korea train comes a day after North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile into the sea off Japan’s west coastfollowing a warning of a powerful response to approaching army drills by South Korea and the US.
North Korea’s state media KCNA mentioned the nation performed a “sudden launching drill” on Saturday in an “precise proof” of its efforts to show the “capability of deadly nuclear counterattack on the hostile forces into the irresistible one”.
Chief Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, issued yet one more warning and bristled at the US for attempting to show the UN Safety Council into what she referred to as a “device for its heinous hostile coverage” towards Pyongyang.
“I warn that we are going to watch each motion of the enemy and take corresponding and really highly effective and overwhelming counteraction towards its each transfer hostile to us,” she mentioned in an announcement.
Saturday’s missile launch, the North’s first since Jan 1, got here after Pyongyang threatened on Friday an “unprecedentedly persistent, sturdy” response as South Korea and the US gear up for annual army workouts as a part of efforts to fend off the North’s rising nuclear and missile threats.
The North Korean state information company mentioned the missile had flown for 1 hour, 6 minutes and 55 seconds, as excessive as 5,768km, earlier than precisely hitting a pre-set space 989km away in open waters. Hwasong-15 was first examined in 2017.
Japan mentioned on Saturday the missile had plunged into waters inside its unique financial zone.
