North Korea says it has conducted ‘tactical nuclear’ exercises for the first time in five years

North Korea said on Monday, October 10, that it had simulated the attacks “Tactical Atom” Last two weeks. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un personally oversees these shootings in response. “Military Threat” According to Pyongyang, it was put forward by the United States and its allies.

Seven ballistic missiles have been launched in the past two weeks. One of these missiles flew over Japan for the first time since 2017. The international community expects North Korea to conduct a nuclear test soon, its first in five years.

Faced with this growing threat, the US, South Korea and Japan have intensified their military cooperation. The three countries have conducted extensive naval and air exercises around the Korean Peninsula in recent weeks, including the deployment of the US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. But North Korea sees these maneuvers as dress rehearsals for an invasion of its territory.

In response, “Korean People’s Army (KPA) units responsible for the use of tactical nuclear weapons conducted military exercises from September 25 to October 9 to test and evaluate the country’s nuclear deterrence and counterattack capability”, the official KCNA news agency said on Monday. These ballistic missile launch tests “Simulation of a real war”She added.

Yet according to KCNA, the exercises are specifically aimed at a “Tactical Nuclear Weapons Loading Simulation” on September 25 in a missile launched from a silo under an artificial lake in the northwest of the country.