Alwaght- South Korea's air force staged a bombing drill hours after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japanese mainland.
Demonstrating its “overwhelming” military force to Pyongyang, Seoul's live-fire drill that involved four F15K fighter jets dropping MK84 multipurpose bombs on a shooting range near the inter-Korean border in Taebaek simulated the destruction of North Korea's leadership.
The MK84 is a 2,000 pound bomb designed to penetrate hardened targets.
The show of force, ordered by South Korean president Moon Jae-in the presidential press secretary told reporters, according to Yonhap.
South Korean president's chief press secretary, Yoon Young-chan, said the bombing drill was ordered by President Moon Jae-in immediately after the National Security Council meeting convened to discuss possible counter measures Seoul could take against Pyongyang’s ballistic missile provocation.
"We assessed North Korea’s provocations as extremely severe and decided to maintain a vigilant posture in preparation for the possibility of additional provocations by North Korea,” the chief of the National Security Council added.
Just before 6 a.m. South Korea time Tuesday, North Korea fired an unidentified missile from near the capital Pyongyang, towards the northeast.
It flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, making it the first North Korean projectile to successfully pass over Japanese territory since 1998. It subsequently broke up and fell into the Pacific Ocean.
A South Korean military official told reporters that the missile flew for about 2,700 kilometers, reaching a maximum altitude of 550 kilometers.
The North Korean missile was fired a day after US and Japanese forces concluded joint military exercises in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost major island. Currently, South Korean and American forces are in the middle of war games. North Korea deems the military drills involving trans-regional US forces as part of preparations to invade its territories and has warned that they may trigger a nuclear war.
Tensions between the US and North Korea have been building up throughout the summer as Kim Jong Un and Trump engaged in a war of words.
