South Korea: American B-1B bomber joins joint air exercises


This supersonic bomber, which is barely detectable by radar and capable of flying at very low altitude, is deployed as tensions increase between the two Koreas.

A U.S. B-1B supersonic heavy bomber was due to take part in South Korea’s extensive aerial exercises jointly conducted by Seoul and Washington on Saturday, extended after a record series of missile fire by North Korea. “The B-1B is scheduled to participate in the afternoon training“Said an official from the South Korean Ministry of Defense, without giving further details on this deployment.

The B-1B is a supersonic bomber that is barely detectable by radar and capable of flying at very low altitude. Although it was originally designed to carry nuclear weapons, it has been used by the United States for exclusively conventional combat missions since the mid-1990s, indicates its manufacturer Boeing on its website. It was notably used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

SEE ALSO – Washington, Tokyo and Seoul promise ‘unprecedented’ response to North Korean nuclear test

Aerial exercisesVigilant Storm» («Vigilant Storm), which started on October 31, are the largest ever jointly organized by South Korea and the United States. Initially scheduled until Friday, they have been extended until Saturday after the multiplication, by North Korea, of missile launches in recent days, and in particular the apparently failed launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the direction of from the Sea of ​​Japan.

On Friday evening, the South Korean army announced that it had deployed some 80 F-35A stealth aircraft after detecting 180 fighter jets flying in North Korean airspace, a new episode in the spectacular rise in tension on the Korean peninsula in recent times. last weeks. The United States on Friday denounced the repeated firing of missiles by North Korea which “ridicule» the UN Security Council, with the complicity according to them of Russia and China, allies of Pyongyang.

Disagreement at the UN

After attacking Russia and China, Washington, Paris, London, other non-permanent member states of the Security Council advocated in a joint statement “the unit” in front of the “threat that North Korea poses to international peace“. China and Russia, whose relations with the West are at their lowest with the war in Ukraine, shunned this joint statement. Their ambassadors criticized the military exercises between the United States and South Korea and accused Washington of wanting “force Pyongyang to unilateral disarmament through sanctions and pressure“.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged, through his spokesperson, that “North Korea immediately refrains from any acts of provocation and fully complies with its obligations under Security Council resolutions“. He said to himself “deeply concerned about tensions on the Korean Peninsula and the push for confrontational rhetoric“, insisted his spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

Pyongyang fired about 30 missiles on Wednesday and Thursday, including one that ended its course near southern territorial waters for the first time since the end of the Korean War in 1953. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol spoke of ‘a “de facto territorial invasion“. North Korea has always viewed U.S.-South Korean military maneuvers as dress rehearsals for an invasion of its territory or an overthrow of its rulers.

Exercise “Vigilant Storm“constitutes”an aggressive and provocative military maneuver targeting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea“, denounced on Wednesday the North Korean regime which threatened Seoul and Washington with “pay the most horrible price in history“. Analysts attribute Pyongyang’s particularly angry reaction to the use, during “Vigilant Storm“, advanced stealth aircraft F-35A and F-35B, perceived as an ideal tool for conducting “beheading strikesflash against North Korean leaders.

North Korea had already, in September, revised its nuclear doctrine to allow itself to carry out preventive strikes in the event of an existential threat against the regime of Kim Jong Un.command and control system“Nuclear North Korea is”endangered by an attack by hostile forces, a nuclear strike will be launched automatically and immediately“, specifies the new doctrine. Seoul and Washington have been warning for months that North Korea is about to carry out a nuclear test, which would be its seventh.

SEE ALSO – North Korea ‘ridiculed’ the UN Security Council



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