North Korea claimed on Monday, October 10, to have simulated strikes “tactical nuclear” over the past two weeks, personally overseen by leader Kim Jong-un, in response to the “military threat” posed according to her by the United States and its allies.
The regime has carried out seven ballistic missile launches since the end of September. One of these projectiles flew over Japan, which had not happened since 2017. And the international community expects Pyongyang to carry out a nuclear test soon, which would also be a first in five years.
Faced with this growing threat, the United States, South Korea and Japan have intensified their military cooperation. The three countries have conducted extensive naval and air exercises in recent weeks. around the Korean peninsula, including the deployment of the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. But these maneuvers are seen by North Korea as a dress rehearsal for an invasion of its territory.
“Units of the Korean People’s Army (APC) responsible for the use of tactical nuclear weapons organized military exercises from September 25 to October 9 in order to verify and evaluate the country’s deterrence and counter-attack capacity., said the official North Korean agency KCNA on Monday. These tests were “the simulation of a real war”, she added. Still according to KCNA, the exercises consisted in particular of a “tactical nuclear warhead loading simulation” aboard a missile that was then launched from a silo under an artificial lake in the northwest of the country on September 25.
Increased voltage
Other tests carried out in the following days consisted, among other things, of simulating the “neutralization of airports” in South Korea, the “Strikes from major command centers” and “of the principal ports of the enemies”according to KCNA.
As for the projectile which flew over Japan on October 4, it was a “new type of intermediate range surface-to-surface ballistic missile”, the agency said. It traveled 4,500 kilometers before falling in the Pacific, which experts believe was the longest distance yet for a North Korean projectile in a test.
KCNA justified these exercises by the joint American-South Korean military maneuvers, “regrettable attitude which further aggravates tension in the region while openly constituting a military threat” for North Korea, she said. Kim Jong Un “directed the exercises on site”said the agency, which on Monday published numerous photos of the leader and the missile launches.
While North Korea disarmament talks have long been deadlocked, Pyongyang, under numerous UN Security Council sanctions, has stepped up its weapons tests since the start of the year. .
Many experts and officials also believe that the country has completed preparations for a new nuclear test, which would be the seventh in its history and the first since 2017. During a giant military parade in late April in Pyongyang, Kim Jong-un promised to develop the country’s nuclear forces “at the fastest possible speed”.
Missile nuclearization
And in late September, the North Korean regime adopted a new doctrine claiming that the country’s nuclear power status was “irreversible”. “They are looking for a tactical nuclear weapon, that’s for sure”estimated Ankit Panda, a security analyst in the United States, who “suspects that they will gradually nuclearize many of their new short-range missiles”.
The fact that North Korea has described its seven recent missile launches as being linked to “tactical nuclear operations units” is significant, this analyst added. “It’s interesting because it includes everything from short-range ballistic missiles to IRBMs [à portée intermédiaire] », he tweeted. North Korea also claimed to have carried out “a large-scale combined air attack simulation” involving “more than 150 planes”and also supervised by Kim Jong-un.
On Thursday, South Korea said it had 30 of its fighter jets take off after detecting 12 North Korean aircraft flying in formation and conducting firing exercises near the inter-Korean border. “Kim probably wants to tell the United States and South Korea that any show of solidarity and alliance readiness will be in vain”, Rand Corporation analyst Soo Kim told AFP. According to this expert, “We probably won’t see North Korea back down anytime soon, and there’s every reason to believe that the allies won’t bend easily this time either”.