TAIPEI, Taiwan – North Korea test launched several ballistic missiles off its west coast on Monday as the U.S. and its ally, South Korea, began a major military exercise, said the South’s military.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, or JCS, said the missile firings, North Korea’s fifth this year, were detected from the North’s Hwanghae province but gave no further details such as how far they flew.
“Our military has strengthened surveillance and vigilance while maintaining full readiness in close coordination with the U.S,” said the JCS.
The launch came a few hours after the U.S. and South Korea launched an annual joining military exercise, called Freedom Shield, which North Korea denounced as a “dangerous provocative act.”
As part of this year’s exercise, the allies will stage 16 large-scale on-field drills, up from 10 last year, to strengthen their combined defense posture against North Korean threats and other challenges, including the regime’s growing military cooperation with Russia.
North Korea’s foreign ministry said the allies were “persistently staging the large-scale joint military exercises” despite North Korea’s repeated warnings, adding the “random exercise of strength will result in aggravated security crisis.”
“This is a dangerous provocative act of leading the acute situation on the Korean peninsula, which may spark off a physical conflict between the two sides by means of an accidental single shot, to the extreme point,” the ministry said in a statement said, as reported by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA
North Korea invariably responds with outrage to joint U.S. South Korean military exercises, condemning them as rehearsals for war, despite the allies' insistence that they are purely defensive.
The North warned the allies would pay a “horrible price” for their joint exercise, a day after the drills were announced.
RELATED STORIES
North Korea vows to ‘step-up’ action against US as aircraft carrier arrives in South
North Korea fires cruise missiles as leader Kim orders war preparations
South Korea and US hold first joint aerial exercise of 2nd Trump administration
This year’s drills will not include any live-fire exercises after two South Korean jets last week accidentally dropped bombs on a South Korean civilian area, injuring 29 people.
Separately, North Korea’s state-run broadcaster reported on Saturday on the accidental bombing, saying it caused a “great uproar” in the South.
“An accident occurred in which puppet air force fighter jets, frenzied over invasion war exercises against our republic, dropped bombs on a civilian village and its surroundings in broad daylight, causing a great uproar in puppet South Korea,” said Korean Central Television.
Two KF-16 fighter jets “abnormally” dropped eight MK-82 bombs outside a training range in the South Korean city of Pocheon, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Seoul, during live-fire drills on Thursday. Fifteen of those injured were civilians.
On Monday, the top South Korean Air Force commander issued a public apology calling it an accident that “should never have happened.”
“The Air Force, which should protect the lives and property of the people, inflicted harm to the people,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Lee Young-su said in a press briefing. “It was an accident that should never have happened, and one that should not recur.”
In an interim probe, the Air Force reaffirmed pilot error as the cause of the bombing, saying the pilot of the first aircraft missed at least three opportunities to prevent the accident after wrongly entering the target coordinates. The South Korean and U.S. militaries have halted all live fire exercises in South Korea until the investigation has finished and safety measures drawn up
Edited by Mike Firn.