A news report on a North Korean missile launch is aired on a TV screen at Seoul Station, Thursday. Yonhap

N. Korea conducts military drills aimed at 'occupying entire territory of the South'

By Lee Hyo-jin

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles (SLBM) toward the East Sea on Wednesday night; hours after the U.S. dispatched strategic bombers to the Korean Peninsula for joint aerial drills with South Korea.

Defense analysts viewed the North's late-night provocation, which came amid an annual South Korea-U.S. military exercise, as a warning to show that it is capable of launching an attack at any time, targeting the South's critical military facilities.

The two SLBMs were fired between 11:40 p.m. and 11:55 p.m., Wednesday, from Sunan, a district of Pyongyang, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). Both missiles flew about 360 kilometers before falling into the waters off the east coast.

"The time of the launch and flight distance of the missiles suggest that the North was sending a message that it can launch an attack any time on our critical military facilities," said Shin Jong-woo, a senior researcher at the Korea Defense and Security Forum, a think tank.

The missiles' flight distance of 360 kilometers was long enough to target South Korea's Gyeryongdae military headquarters in South Chungcheong Province, located about 350 kilometers from Pyongyang's Sunan district.

Moreover, in a photo released by Pyongyang's state media, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Thursday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was apparently pointing to the area near Gyeryongdae on a map of the Korean Peninsula while giving instructions to the military about an ongoing command drill.

The KCNA said the North Korean leader visited the command post of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA) on Tuesday, where he was briefed about the command drill, which is aimed at "occupying the whole territory of the southern half."

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, third from right, visits the training command post of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army, Tuesday, in this photo released by the nation's state media, Korean Central News Agency, Thursday. Yonhap

In that sense, Shin viewed that the North's latest provocation was intended to boast about its nuclear and missile capabilities, rather than being driven out of fear or anxiety over the deployment of U.S. strategic assets on the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang claimed that the missile launches were a "tactical nuclear strike drill" as a warning signal to the enemy "who challenges us with military threats such as the deployment of strategic nuclear assets."

"The U.S. imperialists let a formation of B-1B nuclear strategic bombers conduct a joint attack formation drill against the DPRK together with fighters of the military gangsters of the 'Republic of Korea,'" the KCNA report read. DPRK is the acronym of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.

U.S. B-1B strategic bombers engaged in joint aerial drills with South Korea's FA-50 fighter jets on Wednesday, in a demonstration of a combined defense posture by the two nations. It was the 10th flyover by U.S. bombers over the Korean Peninsula this year.

"The Kim regime's military provocations toward South Korea-U.S. military drills are evolving. They are becoming more blatant and belligerent," said Kim Yeoul-soo, director of the security research office at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs.

Kim said the Kim Jong-un regime has been increasing belligerence against South Korea-U.S. joint exercises over recent years, unlike his father Kim Jong-il who often disappeared from public view when joint drills were being held in the South.

The analyst commented that the North would continue to scale up its missile provocations while using strengthened South Korea-U.S. military cooperation to justify its actions.