US, S. Korea hold war games to warn Nokor
POCHEON (AP) — A huge North Korean flag disappeared behind a tower of flames and thick black smoke yesterday as South Korean fighter jets and US attack helicopters fired rockets in the allies’ biggest joint live- fire drill since the Korean War.
The war games south of the heavily armed Korean border came amid rising animosity between the rival Koreas and are meant to mark Monday’s 62nd anniversary of the start of the 1950- 53 war, which ended in a truce, leaving the Korean peninsula still technically at war.
Live-fire drill by the allies are fairly routine, but using the North’s national flag as part of target practice is unusual - and will be seen as a provocation by Pyongyang, which has previously threatened war for what it called South Korean insults to the country’s national symbols and leadership.
Still, an immediate North Korean military response is unlikely. The rockets didn’t hit the flag, which an analyst said might lead to a less angry North Korean response. But even a direct attack on the flag would probably only result in escalated North Korean threats because Pyongyang’s struggling economy prevents it from staging any attack that could cause a war, said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University.
The one-day drill, involving 2,000 troops from both countries, are intended to send a clear warning against North Korea aggression by showing US and South Korean combat readiness, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. Officials have repeatedly described these as the biggest ever joint drill. They coincide with several days of joint naval exercises involving a nuclearpowered US super carrier and separate US, South Korean and Japanese naval rescue drill.
South Korean defense offi declined to comment on Pyongyang’s possible reaction to the allies using the North Korean flag in the drill. A US military spokesman didn’t immediately comment.
North Korea’s state media have condemned the ongoing drill as a precursor to an invasion, with the Korean Central News Agency warning that even a small clash could lead to a “full-scale regional nuclear war.”
Tension has been rising since a North Korean rocket launch in April that Seoul and Washington called a cover for a test of banned long-range missile technology. North Korea said the launch, which happened during celebrations of the centennial of late national founder Kim Il-sung’s birth, was meant to send a satellite into orbit; the rocket broke apart shortly after liftoff.
The UN Security Council condemned the launch, and Pyongyang has since made a series of threats against Seoul’s conservative government and media, threatening to attack unless it got an apology for perceived insults against the country and its new, young leader, Kim Jong-un.
Thousands of civilians and officials — including South Korea’s prime minister — watched the drill.