Alwaght- North Korea on Tuesday slammed an upcoming joint US-South Korean military drill, warning it would attack the South and the US mainland in case of any armed provocation.
The South and its close US ally will next month hold their largest-ever annual exercise in response to the North's recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, Seoul's defence ministry has announced.
"All the powerful strategic and tactical strike means of our revolutionary armed forces will go into preemptive and just operation to beat back the enemy forces to the last man if there is a slight sign of their special operation forces and equipment moving to carry out the so-called 'beheading operation' and 'high-density strike,'" the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army said in a statement carried by state media.
Pyongyang says its first targets would be South Korea’s presidential Blue House, while secondary targets would include US military bases in Asia and on the US mainland. There are approximately 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea.
North Korean military said it has "the most powerful and ultra-modern strike means" in the world capable of "dealing fatal blows at the US mainland any moment and in any place".
Such blows would "reduce the cesspool of all evils to ashes, never to rise again on our planet", it added in a reference to the US.
On Monday, South Korea announced that it would take part in a “preemptive strike” on simulated North Korean weapons silos. The exercise, to be conducted with the US, would see more than 90,000 South Koreans and 15,000 Americans taking part.
“This year’s operations will involve recovering key facilities that are located deep within North Korea, all the way near its northern borders,” a senior defense official in Seoul told the Korea Herald late last week.
As well as traditionally declaring the joint drills a preparation for a real invasion, Pyongyang has engaged in a particularly bitter war of words with Seoul, calling the South Korean President Park Geun-hye a "tailless, old, insane bitch" who “lives in the groin of her American master.” The comments, published in a leading state newspaper, were a response to Park accusing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un of overseeing an "extreme reign of terror."
Last month North Korea successfully launched a rocket carrying an earth observation satellite ignoring warnings by the US and its allies not to launch the satellite.
The launch comes just weeks after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test.
Pyongyang says developing a nuclear weapon was important in order to protect itself against US interference in North Korean affairs, and that the bomb can defend Pyongyang against any invasion.
