North Korea has launched a military command post drill involving the scenario of occupying South Korean territory, state media reported Thursday, in response to Seoul and Washington's combined military exercise.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un oversaw the drill during his visit to a training command post of the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA) on Tuesday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
North Korea also said it conducted a tactical nuclear strike drill simulating "scorched-earth" strikes against major command centers and airfields in South Korea on Wednesday night, referring to the firing of two short-range ballistic missiles toward waters off its east coast.
North Korea slammed Seoul and Washington for staging "provocative and dangerous" large-scale joint exercises simulating an all-out war against it. Pyongyang has long denounced the allies' military drills as a rehearsal for an invasion.
South Korea and the United States are set to complete their Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise Thursday, which started its 11-day run on Aug. 21. On Wednesday, the allies staged joint air drills, involving at least one U.S. B-1B strategic bomber, over the Yellow Sea.
North Korea's command drill was "aimed at occupying the entire territory of the southern half by repelling the enemy's sudden armed invasion and switching over to an all-out counterattack," according to the KCNA.
The Kim regime has staged various forms of what it claims are tactical nuclear strike drills targeting South Korea. But North Korea disclosed the launch of a command post exercise for the first time that includes part of its war plan to attack the enemy in the event of conflict.
Kim called for dealing heavy blows to the enemies' war command center and means of command communication in the initial stage of military operations.
"He stressed the need to pay the greatest attention to making the enemy dispirited, throwing their combat action into confusion and paralyzing their will and ability to fight a war from the outset," the report said.
Kim also highlighted the need to conduct "simultaneous super-intense strikes" at key South Korean military targets and other core facilities so as to cause "social, political and economic chaos," it added.
Photos carried by state media showed Kim pointing to an apparent military operational map featuring South Korean targets in areas of where the Gyeryongdae military headquarters, 160 kilometers south of Seoul, is located.
North Korea has called for bolstering its military power, including its naval forces, as Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have agreed to beef up their security cooperation to counter the North's nuclear and missile threats.
Meanwhile, the KCNA said in a separate dispatch that the KPA General Staff on Wednesday conducted a tactical nuclear strike drill against the South in response to Washington's deployment of its B-1B strategic bomber.
The KPA missile unit "correctly carried out its nuclear strike mission through air bursts at a preset altitude of 400 meters above the target island," the KCNA said.
The South Korean military said it detected the launch of two short-range ballistic missiles between around 11:40 p.m. and 11:50 p.m. Wednesday. The missiles each flew some 360 kilometers before splashing into the East Sea.
The North's military warned the drill was aimed at sending a "clear message" to the enemies to show the North's "resolute punitive will and substantive retaliation capabilities" against them.
The top nuclear envoys of South Korea, the United States and Japan, meanwhile, "strongly condemned" the ballistic missiles launch during their phone consultations, according to Seoul's foreign ministry.
Seoul's chief nuclear negotiator, Kim Gunn, and his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Sung Kim and Hiroyuki Namazu, respectively, also urged Pyongyang to "immediately cease" the provocations, Lim Soo-suk, spokesperson for the ministry, said during a regular press briefing.
South Korea's unification ministry "strongly" condemned North Korea for bluntly revealing its intent to stage a military attack against the South under the pretext of the allies' annual military drills, which are defensive in nature.
"The more the North is obsessed with military threats and provocations, the more it will face overwhelming responses by South Korea, the U.S. and Japan," a ministry official said.
At a key party meeting in December 2022, the North's leader dubbed South Korea as the country's "undoubted enemy" while calling for an "exponential" increase in its nuclear arsenal and the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and tactical nuclear weapons.
Source: Yonhap News Agency