North Korea says massive missile barrage was a simulated attack on South, US

Last week’s flurry of launches were a rehearsal for assaults on airbases, warplanes and operation command systems, the North’s military said on Monday

It said it conducted the simulated attacks to ‘smash the enemies’ persistent war hysteria’ following massive joint US-South Korea military exercises

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A combination image released on Monday by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency shows various missile tests being performed by the Korean People’s Army at undisclosed locations. Photo: KCNA via KNS / AFP

Published: 12:10pm, 7 Nov 2022

North Korea said on Monday that its recent missile launches were simulated strikes on South Korea and the United States as the two countries held a “dangerous war drill”, while the South said it had recovered parts of a North Korean missile near its coast.

Last week, North Korea test-fired multiple missiles, including a possible failed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and hundreds of artillery shells into the sea, as South Korea and the US carried out six-day air drills that ended on Saturday.

The North’s military said the “Vigilant Storm” exercises were an “open provocation aimed at intentionally escalating the tension” and “a dangerous war drill of very high aggressive nature”.

US Air Force B-1B bombers (top centre) fly in formation with South Korean and US fighter jets on Saturday as part of this year’s “Vigilant Storm” joint air force drills, marking the bombers’ first such flyover of the Korean peninsula in five years. Photo: South Korean Defence Ministry via AP

It said it had conducted activities simulating attacks on airbases and aircraft, as well as a major South Korean city, to “smash the enemies’ persistent war hysteria”.

The flurry of missile launches included the most ever in a single day, and come amid a record year of missile testing by the nuclear-armed North Korea. South Korean and US officials have also said that Pyongyang has made technical preparations to test a nuclear device, the first time it will have done so since 2017.

Senior diplomats from the US, Japan, and South Korea spoke by phone on Sunday and condemned the recent tests, including the “reckless” launch of a missile that landed off South Korea’s coast last week, according to a US State Department statement.

An official at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Monday that a South Korean ship had recovered debris believed to be part of that North Korean short-range ballistic missile was the first time a North Korean ballistic missile had landed near South Korean waters.