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| South Korea's F-35 Stealth Fighter Jets Strike Drills with Laser-guided Bombs |
Seoul - South Korean F-35А stealth fighter jets practice hitting North Korean dummy missile-launching vehicles with laser-guided bombs during joint war games with the United States on Friday. The maneuvers took place hours after Pyongyang fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that landed in Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the live-fire exercise was conducted at the Pilsung Range in northeastern Gangwon Province, which borders North Korea. JCS said that four South Korean F-35A stealth fighter jets flew in attack formation along with four US F-16 fighters. "The maneuvers demonstrated the allies' ability to respond decisively to any threats and provocations, including North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles," the JCS said, as quoted by Reuters, Saturday (11/19/2022).
North Korea's launch of an ICBM on Friday was the latest in a series of tests of artillery shells and missiles of various types so far this month into the Yellow and Sea of Japan, known to Koreans as the East Sea, on Wednesday.
North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui warned last Thursday that his country would respond tougher to "precautionary" measures by the US and its Asian allies. Choe denounced Washington's drills with South Korea and Japan as "exercise for aggression."
South Korea's minister in charge of relations with Pyongyang, Kwon Young-se, said Seoul may have to consider acquiring its own nuclear arsenal or asking the US to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula if tensions continue to escalate.