The military of North Korea said on Monday that its recent blitz of missile tests were drills for “mercilessly” hitting important South Korean and American targets such air bases and operational command systems with a variety of missiles, potentially including nuclear-capable weapons.
The North’s announcement highlighted its leader Kim Jong Un’s resolve to stand his ground in the face of his adversaries’ efforts to increase their military drills. However, according to some experts, Kim also used their drills as an excuse to update his nuclear weapons and gain more clout in upcoming negotiations with Washington and Seoul.
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Last week, in response to the large U.S.-South Korean air force exercises, North Korea launched dozens of missiles and aeroplanes toward the sea, causing evacuation alerts in certain South Korean and Japanese towns.
Officials from the United States and South Korea replied that they will improve their joint training exercises and warned the North that the use of nuclear weapons would lead to the overthrow of Kim’s leadership.
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The General Staff of North Korea’s military declared in a statement released by state media that “the recent comparable military operations by the Korean People’s Army are a clear answer of (North Korea) that the more thoroughly and savagely the KPA will counter them.”
It claimed that the weapons tests involved ground-to-air missiles that were intended to “annihilate” enemy aircraft at various altitudes and distances, ballistic missiles with dispersion warheads and underground infiltration warheads, and strategic cruise missiles that were launched in international waters about 80 kilometres (50 miles) off the coast of Ulsan, South Korea.
The military of the North claimed to have also conducted a significant test of a ballistic missile with a special functional warhead with the goal of “paralysing the operation command system of the enemy,” which could be interpreted as a mock electromagnetic pulse attack, but some observers question whether North Korea has mastered the necessary technologies to develop such an attack capability.
Although its main newspaper published a picture of an ICBM-like missile as one of the weapons mobilised during last week’s testing activities, the North’s military statement made no explicit mention of a reportedly launched intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday that was reportedly intended to hit the U.S. mainland.
Numerous other North Korean missiles were fired last week, according to some experts, and many of them were short-range nuclear-capable weapons that put important South Korean military targets, such as American facilities there, in striking distance.
Later on Monday, the military of South Korea challenged several of the North’s claims regarding its missile testing. The North’s cruise missile launches were not detected by South Korea, according to spokesperson Kim Jun-rak, and it is noteworthy that North Korea made no mention of what Seoul believed to be an unusual ICBM flight.
