The South Korean Armed Forces deployed “stealth” warplanes after detecting the presence of 180 North Korean warplanes as Seoul participated in major joint military maneuvers with the United States.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South Korean Armed Forces had “sent 80 fighter jets, including the stealth F-35A”, and that the jets that took part in military maneuvers this week were “on hand”.
North Korea has launched a record number of missiles this week, including an unsuccessful intercontinental missile test on Thursday.
Seoul and Washington have extended the joint exercises, the largest military exercise ever conducted by the two countries, until Saturday, in response to the communist regime’s firing.
“Our military forces have detected about 180 North Korean warplanes deployed in Pyongang airspace,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said, deciding to deploy the warplanes.
‘Wrong and dangerous choice’
Shortly after the decision to extend military exercises between the United States and South Korea was announced on Thursday, the Pyongyang regime launched three short-range ballistic missiles and said expanding the exercises was a “misguided and very dangerous choice”. .
Hours later, North Korea fired 80 artillery shells into a naval “buffer zone”.
South Korea’s Chiefs of Staff said the shooting was a “clear violation” of the 2018 agreement that established this border area outside of hostilities between the countries.
The artillery fire came after North Korea launched about 30 missiles between Wednesday and Thursday, including one that landed near South Korean territorial waters, an event unprecedented since the end of the Korean war in 1953.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said the launch was a “de facto invasion of territory”.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin described the intercontinental missile launch as “illegal and destabilizing”.
North Korea has arrived as South Korea is in a period of national mourning after more than 150 people were killed in a riot during a party in Seoul last Saturday.
Pyongyang’s “provocations” are “acts against humanity and a sense of humanity, especially during our national mourning,” said Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Hyo-jung on Friday.
Protest against military exercise
Analysts say Pyongyang has stepped up tests and missile launches to protest the military maneuvers of Seoul and Washington, which have warned that the Kim Jong Un regime is preparing for the seventh nuclear test in the country’s history.
The North Korean regime has threatened Seoul and Washington with “the most horrific price in history”, declaring the current air exercise “Storm Watchful” an “aggressive military maneuver against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”.
In addition to extending the operation until Saturday, the South Korean military announced the Taegeuk exercise, an annual maneuver to “improve the performance of the wartime transition” for next week.
The military said this computer simulation exercise is aimed at improving “the ability to perform practical tasks in preparation for a variety of threats, such as nuclear weapons, missiles and the latest provocations by North Korea.”
source: Noticias
