On October 6, in protest over recent joint military drills between South Korea and the US, 12 North Korean military aircraft flew in formation and reportedly conducted training, according to the South Korean military.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) of South Korea reported that at 2 p.m. on October, when the exercise was supposed to have taken place, eight North Korean fighter jets and four bombers flew in formation north of the inter-Korean demarcation line.
According to the JCS, a “overwhelming” response to the North Korean warplanes’ flights included the quick deployment of some 30 South Korean fighter jets to the region.
According to Yonhap, as North Korean bombers went south of the Special Reconnaissance Line, which Seoul has drawn just north of the inter-Korean border for security reasons, the South Korean Air Force scrambled fighter fighters.
The military action by Pyongyang comes amid recent air, land, and sea manoeuvres by Seoul and Washington in retaliation for a number of missile launches by North Korea.
On October 4, North Korea fired a medium-range ballistic missile over Japan. In response, South Korea and the US sent F-15K and F-16 fighter jets to take part in precision strike drills. During these drills, JADAM was bombed by a Korean F-15K at a shooting range on an uninhabited island in the Yellow Sea.
In response to North Korea’s most recent missile launch, both the South Korean and US armies conducted missile drills on the ground. In response, each side fired two ATACMS short-range ballistic missiles into the sea that separates the Korean peninsula from Japan.
Additionally, on October 5, the US aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan made a second visit to the seas east of the Korean peninsula to take part in trilateral naval drills with South Korea and Japan. After bilateral naval drills between the US and South Korea and subsequently trilateral drills including the two allies and Japan, the US aircraft carrier strike group left the waters last week.
#North Korea #Exercise #F-15K #ATACMS #Korea Air Force #Inter-Korean
