North Korea’s flagship state propaganda arm claimed in a report on Tuesday that communist dictator Kim Jong-un personally led what it called a “combined tactical drill simulating a nuclear counterattack.”
The regime’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) claimed the military exercise was necessary in response to ongoing joint drills between the South Korean and American armed forces, set to conclude on April 26. The exercise, it alleged, sent “a clear warning signal to the enemies as it was conducted at a time when the enemies’ military confrontation racket against the DPRK is being committed with extremely provocative and aggressive nature.”
Kim Jong-un allegedly expressed “great satisfaction” with the success of the drill.
The alleged nuclear attack exercise follows an increasingly long list of belligerent actions by Pyongyang in the past year, following the implementation of a constitution amendment making it impossible for North Korea to denuclearize and a declaration in January that North Korea would not pursue reconciliation with free South Korea.
“We don’t want war, but we have no intention of avoiding it,” Kim Jong-un said in January, concluding that North Korea “cannot go along the road of national restoration and reunification together.”
RELATED: Kim Jong Un Supervises Tests of “Super-Large” Rocket Launchers Near Pyongyang
The nuclear “counterattack” drill occurred on Monday, according to KCNA, and involved the testing of “the reliability of the system of command, management, control and operation of the whole nuclear force.” KCNA credited Kim Jong-un personally with guiding the entire drill “simulating a nuclear counterattack involving super-large multiple rocket artillerymen.”
“Expressing great satisfaction over the result of the drill, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un appreciated the high hit and accuracy of the super-large multiple rocket launchers,” KCNA relayed, “saying that he seemed to see the firing of a sniper’s rifle and that the Korean-style tactical nuclear strike means boasting of the formidable might, the most powerful in the world, have strictly prepared themselves to faithfully mobilize.”
Kim claimed that North Korea’s ability to accurately use “super-large multiple rocket launchers” had “remarkably increased” and insisted the purpose of simulating a nuclear attack was to fulfill the “important mission of deterring a war.”
South Korea’s Korea JoongAng Daily identified “four super-large multiple rocket launchers” in the photos published in KCNA on Tuesday.
“The super-large multiple rocket launcher is a short-range ballistic missile (SRMB) with a range of 400 kilometers, codenamed KN-25 by South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities,” it reported, suggesting that, should the equipment function properly, it could give North Korea the ability to target the headquarters of the South Korean Army, Navy, and Air Force.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry threatened to destroy the Kim regime if targeted with nuclear weapons in response to the reported exercise on Tuesday.
“If North Korea attempts to use weapons, it will face an immediate, overwhelming and decisive response from the South Korea-U.S. alliance, and the North Korean regime will face its end,” ministry spokesperson Jeon Ha-kyu told reporters, according to the Yonhap news agency.
“As North Korea continues its nuclear and missile provocations, the United States’ ability to implement extended deterrence will be enhanced,” JoongAng quoted Jeon as saying, “and South Korea’s independent preparedness capabilities, such as the three-axis system, will be further strengthened.”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), South Korea’s military leadership, dismissed the claims in the KCNA report as “exaggerated.”
“North Korea is known to have not yet concluded its experiments with small tactical nuclear weapons,” spokesperson Lee Sung-jun told reporters, Yonhap reported.
The North Korean communist regime began the month with the test of an alleged “hypersonic warhead,” threatening America with the claim that Pyongyang had intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) that could reach Guam. The JCS confirmed at the time that the missile tested on April 2 was likely an IRBM. Prior to that, Kim had orchestrated several military exercises in which North Korea allegedly boasted advanced technology, including an alleged “underwater nuclear weapon system” and “the most powerful tanks in the world,” which KCNA claimed Kim drove himself.
South Korean authorities accused North Korea throughout the year of interfering with their legislative elections, which took place on April 10. The election was a resounding defeat for the People Power Party (PPP), the ruling conservative party of President Yoon Suk-yeol, though that result appeared to be tied more closely to domestic issues such as a poor economy and corruption concerns than fear of North Korea.
South Korean police revealed on Tuesday that they had uncovered widespread evidence of another form of threat spreading in the country from North Korea: the hacking of critical defense corporations and their subcontractors. According to the National Police Agency, hackers affiliated with North Korean cybercrime rings had infiltrated “South Korean defense manufacturers but also went after subcontractors with comparatively weaker cybersecurity measures,” JoongAng reported on Tuesday.
“The attacks were routed through IP addresses located in Shenyang, northeastern China, with one of the addresses being the same as the one used in the hack of the Korea Water Resources Corporation in 2014,” the newspaper noted, citing the police, and were intended to steal defense technology.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.