N Korea-artillery exercise
N. Korean leader inspects 'fire assault drill' on Thursday to prepare to 'deter war': state media
SEOUL, March 10 (Yonhap) -- North Korea announced Friday that its leader Kim Jong-un inspected a "fire assault drill" of an artillery unit a day earlier as he stressed the need to "overwhelmingly respond" to any war preparations by the enemy.
On Thursday, South Korea's military said the North fired a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) toward the Yellow Sea from the North's western port city of Nampho at 6:20 p.m.
Kim gave the field guidance to the "Hwasong artillery unit charged with important operational task of the Korean People's Army on the western front on March 9 and watched a fire assault drill," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in an English-language report.
"He stressed the need to always stay alert for all sorts of more frantic war preparation moves being committed by the enemy recently and maintain and steadily train the powerful capability to overwhelmingly respond to and contain them all the time so as to thoroughly deter the danger of a military clash on the Korean Peninsula," it added.
The North's leader also "examined the actual war response posture of the 8th fire assault company under the unit charged with striking the enemy's operation airport in the direction of the western front."
The exercise was conducted to "deter war" and to "take the initiative in war, by steadily intensifying various simulated drills for real war in a diverse way in different situations," according to the KNCA.
Photos released by the KCNA showed Kim's daughter, Ju-ae, also attended the field guidance.
Pyongyang's latest provocation came as the allies are preparing to kick off the Freedom Shield exercise set to take place from Monday through March 23. The exercise is to proceed concurrently with the large-scale field training exercise, called the Warrior Shield.
[https://youtu.be/XKDzYcbkLuw]
(END)
(C) Yonhap News Agency. All Rights Reserved
