North Korean leader Kim Jong Un directed an artillery firing drill by the country’s military, the Korean People’s Army, state-run Korean Central News Agency reported on Friday.
KCNA said Thursday’s drills involved border troops within range of “the enemy’s capital,” referring to Seoul, the South Korean capital of nearly 10 million residents, adding that the drills “fulfilled important military tasks” for the war effort. deterrence. “
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the North Korean military test-fired multiple rocket launcher shells and self-propelled artillery into the Yellow Sea between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. local time on Thursday.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it is monitoring North Korea’s military activities as South Korean and U.S. forces conduct joint exercises. The exercise, known as Freedom Shield, began on Monday with twice as many troops as last year.
North Korea has also made “repeated attempts” to interfere with GPS signals near the South Korean border since Tuesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a separate statement, adding that no damage had been caused but warning of the consequences.
A spokesman for the U.S. State Department said in Washington that the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises are “routine and defensive in nature” and called on North Korea to “refrain from taking further provocative and destabilizing actions and return to diplomacy.” Thursday’s artillery drill was aimed at improving combat readiness and combat capabilities, KCNA said.
Kim Jong Il urged the military to advance preparations so that artillery units can “take initiative to strike ruthlessly and quickly at the moment of entering actual war.”
“He emphasized the need to train all artillery units in the army into artillery combat experts… and put forward the important task of improving artillery combat readiness,” the report said.
Photos released by KCNA showed Kim Jong Un wearing a black leather jacket and flanked by soldiers watching from an air raid shelter as fireballs erupted from the artillery fire.
Seoul Defense Minister Shin Won-sik inspected the capital’s defense headquarters on Thursday and ordered a firm response if North Korea launches provocations against the capital.
Earlier this week, North Korean state media said Kim Jong Un inspected field training of troops at a major military operating base in the country’s western region.
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