US, South Korea start massive Air Force drills

SEOUL: The US and South Korea on Monday began a five-day joint air exercise on the Korean peninsula involving 230 aircraft and 12,000 American troops, in what North Korea has dubbed the largest-ever joint aerial drill.

North Korea said ahead of the Vigilant Ace 18 drills that it would consider the “highest level hard-line counter measure in history,” according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

It referred to a similar statement in September, which Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said may include a ground-level test of a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean. North Korea regularly cites military drills around the peninsula as justification for its nuclear and missile-testing programme.

The regime on November 29 launched an ICBM with improved technology that can deliver a nuclear warhead anywhere in the US, and claimed it had completed its nuclear force.