Seoul (EFE).- North Korea carried out a “nuclear counterattack” exercise over the weekend in the presence of leader Kim Jong-un with a view to sending an “even more serious warning” to the maneuvers in Seoul and Washington, they reported. this Monday the North Korean media, in another step in the escalation of tension in the peninsula.
“Combined tactical exercises were held on March 18 and 19 to substantially strengthen the country’s war deterrence and nuclear counterattack capabilities,” the state news agency KCNA reported.
The exercise that simulated “a nuclear counterattack conducted by units operating tactical nuclear weapons took place in a tense situation where allied forces of the US and South Korea are frantically intensifying their large-scale war drills to invade the People’s Republic of Korea (North’s official name) and massively bring US strategic nuclear assets into South Korea,” the KCNA added.
American and South Korean fighters
Last Sunday, two Pentagon strategic bombers carried out exercises with US and South Korean fighters over the peninsula in the combined spring maneuvers “Freedom Shield” and after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday and another that appeared to be short-range. on Sunday.
“The drill was also aimed at demonstrating our strong willingness to provide a real war response and to send an even more serious warning to the enemy, who is expanding his war drills for aggression,” KCNA adds.
North Korea has repeatedly warned that it would make a forceful response to the “Freedom Shield” exercises, which began on March 13 and will last until the 23rd.
KCNA explained that the two-day maneuvers were divided into “an exercise to manage the nuclear attack control system,” which sought to train the units involved to “adopt a nuclear counterattack posture,” and then “a drill to launch a tactical ballistic missile with a simulated nuclear warhead” which was held on Sunday.
The missile, whose launch was detected and reported yesterday by the South Korean army, was launched from North Pyongan, near the Sohae space launch center (northwest of the country), and “precisionly exploded at an altitude of 800 meters” coinciding with a simulated target. established on the waters of the Yellow Sea.
This “once again demonstrates the reliability of the operation of nuclear explosion control devices and detonators installed on the nuclear warhead,” the North Korean state agency noted.
According to expert estimates based on released images of the launch, the missile appears to have been fired from a silo that had been built on the southeastern edge of the Sohae space complex.
Leader Kim Jong-un, whose photos released by the KCNA show him watching the exercises with his daughter, said he was very pleased with the results.
In the photographs published by KCNA and also broadcast, as a still image, by the KCTV network, a North Korean officer also appears next to Kim whose face has been purposely blurred so that it is not recognizable.
The man also wears a mask and sunglasses, in a gesture possibly intended to prevent him from being identified in order to avoid being included on lists of individuals subject to financial sanctions for his relationship with the North Korean nuclear and missile program.