North Korea reports latest missile launches, calling it strike drill

Seoul: North Korea conducted a firepower strike drill involving artillery and missile units last week, state media reported on Monday, following a trilateral military exercise by South Korea, the United States and Japan.

The report came after South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) detected multiple short-range ballistic missiles launched from the North’s Wonsan area toward the East Sea on Saturday.

“A joint firepower attack drill of long-range artillery and missile units of the combined units at all levels of the Korean People’s Army took place on September 12,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The drill involved subunits selected from the five artillery and missile joint units and featured new combat systems, including various types of attack drones, tactical cruise missiles, large-calibre thermal-pressure multiple rocket launchers and tactical ballistic missiles.

The North claimed that all strike weapon systems hit their targets with 100 per cent accuracy, describing the drill as demonstrating the “unity and simultaneity of firepower attack.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not attend the drill. Instead, Pak Jong-chon, vice chairman of the North’s Central Military Commission, observed the exercise, reports Yonhap news agency.

Yu Chang-son, director of the artillery bureau of the military, said the drill would improve the “level of specialisation to bring down the enemy’s armed forces organisationally and structurally,” and vowed to “steadily enhance the counterattack posture against the enemy through practical drills.”

Pyongyang usually reports missile launches the following day. In recent months, North Korea skipped such missile reports, but this time, the report came a day later than that and appeared only in the KCNA, a media outlet primarily intended for foreign audiences. It was not carried by media aimed at a domestic audience, including the party newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

Saturday’s launches marked the North’s 13th ballistic missile launch of the year. The missiles were assessed to be Hwasong-11 series short-range ballistic missiles and rounds fired from 600-millimetre super-large multiple rocket launchers.

On Friday, Seoul, Washington and Tokyo concluded their five-day Freedom Edge exercise in international waters east and south of South Korea’s southern island of Jeju.

North Korean Defence Minister Kim Song-gi strongly criticised the exercise, warning that Pyongyang would take “strong and reflective countermeasures” against what it called US-led military provocations.

The trilateral drills proceeded as planned even though Seoul and Washington scaled back their annual combined Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise last month following an order from US President Donald Trump, in what appeared to be a conciliatory gesture toward Pyongyang.

Trump has expressed his willingness to meet with North Korean leader Kim this year.

IANS