North Korea simulates nuclear counter-attack
Kim Jong Un oversees the firing of super-large multiple rockets using the nuclear trigger
North Korea fired several short-range ballistic missiles on Monday as part of a simulated nuclear counter-attack, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Tuesday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the demonstration of the country’s first ever “nuclear trigger” management system for the first time, the country’s combined control system for its nuclear weapons, according to KCNA.
Kim “guided a combined tactical drill simulating a nuclear counterattack involving super-large multiple rocket artillerymen,” the report said.
The rockets “hit their island target” some 352 kilometers away, it continued, saying Kim had expressed “great satisfaction” over the result, which boosted “the Korean-style tactical nuclear strike.”
The latest launch “is an exercise designed for a scenario showing how the Kim regime would respond to a surprise aerial bombing on Pyongyang by joint US-South Korea air forces,” Han Kwon-hee of the Korea Association of Defense Industry Studies told Agence France-Presse.
“The drill shows the possible response could involve retaliation by nuclear missiles at the South,” he added.
KCNA said the drills were in response to a United StatesSouth Korean joint air drill, which runs from 12 to 26 April.
The US and South Korean air forces said the annual exercises would serve for “demonstrating lethality in the air domain, and enhancing their ability to deter, defend, and defeat any adversary.”
Pyongyang claims it is “seriously threatened by the hostile forces’ ceaseless military provocations,” KCNA said Tuesday.
As a result, the North needs to “more overwhelmingly and more rapidly bolster up the strongest military muscle,” it added.