[Yonhap Photo]
Backed by stealth fighters, U.S. and South Korean troops staged a major joint air exercise targeting key North Korean missile and nuclear facilities, five days after the nuclear-armed country launched an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The five-day exercise code-named "Vigilant ACE" involved about 230 planes, military authorities said. It was the largest of its kind, demonstrating a show of force by the allies to a series of North Korean provocations including last week's launch of the Hwasong-15 ICBM capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.
Stealth fighters including six F-22 Raptors and six F-35As were mobilized for bombing drills and simulated precision strikes while other strategic American assets from abroad were to participate in joint training with an unspecified number of South Korean jet fighters, according to the South's defense ministry.
The ministry said the exercise was aimed at testing operation capabilities. "This is an annual exercise to improve wartime operational capabilities," an air force official told a regular briefing.
There are about 28,000 US troops stationed in South Korea. Extra US military assets and personnel come from abroad for regular joint drills that Washington and Seoul insist are purely defensive in nature, but which Pyongyang condemns as provocative rehearsals for an attack on the North.
The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, a North Korean state body in charge of cross-border relations, condemned the exercise "simulating an actual war" and warned it would "invite more terrible retaliation and precipitate their self-destruction".
"The projected war rehearsal is just a grave military provocation which will push the already acute situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war," the committee said in a statement published by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
