US and S. Korea begin war games
Drill sparks outrage from N. Korea.
SEOUL: Hundreds of aircrafts, including two dozen stealth jets, began training as the United States and South Korea launched their biggest ever combined air force exercise.
The war games come a week after North Korea test-fired its most powerful missile ever, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that may be able to target the eastern seaboard of the United States.
The five-day drill, which is called Vigilant Ace, is meant to improve the allies’ wartime capabilities and preparedness, South Korea’s defence ministry said yesterday.
The US Seventh Air Force sent major strategic military assets, which include six F-22 and 18 F-35 stealth fighter jets, for the annual training exercise in the Korean Peninsula.
About 12,000 US military personnel are participating. In total, 230 aircraft will be flying at eight US and South Korean military installations in the South.
Some local media reported that B-1B bombers would also join aerial drills, but officials did not confirm their participation.
The training, held each year in late fall, is not in response to any incident or provocation, the Seventh Air Force said in a statement.
North Korea’s state media said the drill pushes the Korean Peninsula “to the brink of nuclear war”.
Such language is typical in North Korean propaganda because the country claims US-South Korean drills are preparation for invasion.
Still, tensions are at a particularly dangerous point as North Korea edges toward its goal of a viable arsenal of nuclear-tipped longrange missiles and as President Donald Trump ramps up his rhetoric toward the North, threatening, for instance, to unleash “fire and fury” against the country.
Pyongyang will “seriously consid- er” countermeasures against the drill, and the United States and South Korea “will pay dearly for their provocations,” the Korean Central News Agency said on Sunday before the start of the exercises.
While many South Koreans typically ignore North Korea’s rhetoric, some senior US officials have expressed worry following the ICBM test, North Korea’s third. Also on Sunday, the White House national security adviser said Trump would take care of North Korean threats by “doing more ourselves”.
“The priorities that the president’s given us to move as quickly as we can to resolve this crisis with North Korea,” General H.R. McMaster told Fox News in an interview.