American and South Korean soldiers deployed heavy weapons near the North Korean border for live-fire war games. North Korea views the joint military exercises as preparations for a regime change war. Last month, a South Korean official said Washington and Seoul simulated the assassination of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
The South Korean Army said the week-long war games involved heavy weapons and ended on Thursday. For the drills, a South Korean mechanized infantry brigade joined an American Army Stryker brigade. In total, over 110 weapons platforms were used, including tanks, anti-aircraft artillery, combat earthmovers, attack aircraft, and armored fighting vehicles.
The drills came in addition to naval live-fire war games conducted on Wednesday.
On Thursday, North Korean state media slammed the drills. “Reality shows that peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the region can never be achieved as long as the reckless moves of the puppet group, who greeted the new year with confrontation remarks and roar of artillery guns for war, are allowed to go on,” KCNA reported. “The more desperately the group of mad dogs, no more than the faithful war shock brigade and cannon fodder of the US, run amuck, the earlier they will go to the slaughterhouse.”
Pyongyang’s statement continued, “The confrontation maniacs will only suffer the most painful moments that they can never imagine, in the new year, too.”
Under President Joe Biden, Washington has abandoned diplomacy with Pyongyang and began a military buildup. The US and South Korea have resumed large scare war games and simulations of assassinating Kim. Additionally, Washington has deployed strategic weapons to the Korean Peninsula.
Pyongyang has reacted sharply to Biden’s aggressive policy. North Korea has conducted a series of missile tests, put a salience satellite into orbit, and plans to advance its nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang repeatedly warned last year that Washington’s policy has the peninsula on the brink of a nuclear conflict.
