South Korea launched several ballistic missiles into the sea on Monday, South Korea’s Seoul, South Korea, and South Korea’s military said South Korea and the U.S. military had been hours after the start of a large-scale merger training, which was an invasion exercise in the north.
South Korea’s joint chief of staff said North Korea’s fifth missile launch was discovered from the northern province of Huangxia, but did not provide any further details such as how far they flew. It said South Korea strengthened its surveillance posture and coordinated closely with the United States.
Earlier Monday, South Korean and U.S. forces began their annual joint military exercise, which was planned to last 11 days. The Free Shield Order began exercises after South Korean and U.S. troops stopped training in live fires, while Seoul investigated how two of its fighters mistakenly bombed civilian areas during a warm-up exercise last week.
The start of the exercise drew condemnation of nuclear-armed North Korea, which issued a government statement calling the exercise a “dangerous provocative act” that increased the risk of military conflict.
On Thursday, two South Korean KF-16 fighters mistakenly fired eight MK-82 bombs at Pocheon, a small town near the North Korean border, with about 30 injured, and two of them injured. The bombing took place when South Korea and the U.S. forces conducted live exercises ahead of the larger Free Shield movement.
In a background briefing to domestic journalists on Monday, the South Korean Air Force last week repeated its preliminary assessment that one of the KF-16 pilots entered the wrong coordinates to carry out the bombing site.
The unidentified pilot was unaware of the error during the pre-collective inspection and was eager to meet the scheduled opportunity, failing to visually verify the target before bombing. The second pilot had the correct coordinates but focused only on throwing the bombs with other aircraft along with other pilot instructions, but failed to recognize that they deviated from the right target, according to the briefing provided to the Associated Press.
General Lee Youngsu, chief of staff of South Korea, bowed and apologized on Monday and said “this should never happen and must never happen again.”
After the accident, both South Korean and U.S. troops stopped all on-site exercises in South Korea. South Korean military officials said on-site fire training will resume after ongoing investigations into the bombing and precautions are formulated.
The Free Shield Movement marks the first large-scale joint exercise since President Donald Trump began his second term. This is due to growing tensions in North Korea over its nuclear ambitions and consistency with Russia in the war with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump, who met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un three times during his first term, expressed his willingness to engage with Kim Jong-il again to revive diplomacy, collapsed due to differences in exchange for U.S. denuclearization steps for the North and North Korea. But Pyongyang has not responded to his overture and continues to make fierce remarks about Washington and Seoul, which Kim described as a rehearsal of the invasion.
In a statement released Monday through state media, North Korea’s foreign ministry called the Free Shield practice a “active and confrontational war rehearsal” that could trigger a “physical conflict” on the Korean Peninsula.
The ministry reiterated Kim’s national goal to “completely grow” his nuclear power in response to the threat he claimed was increasing the United States and its Asian allies.
