The navies of South Korea, the US, and Japan are all set to hold two days of anti-submarine exercises starting from Monday in order to counter the evolving nuclear and missile capabilities of North Korea, South Korea’s defence ministry said, as reported by the news agency Reuters.
The drills will take place in international waters off South Korea’s southern Island of Jeju, involving a US carrier strike group led by USS Nimitz, which arrived last week in the southeastern city of Busan. According to Reuters, the drills came after North Korea unveiled new, smaller nuclear warheads last week and vowed to produce more weapons-grade nuclear materials to expand its arsenal.
According to the ministry, The trilateral drills which will take place this week will use a mobile anti-submarine warfare training target to improve the capabilities needed to detect, track and destroy underwater threats coming from North Korea, as reported by Reuters. These countries last held anti-submarine drills in September amid North Korea’s unprecedented number of missile tests.
Earlier in March, Korea claimed that about 800,000 civilians have volunteered to join the nation's military to fight against the US, CNN reported. North Korea's state newspaper Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported that around 800,000 students and workers alone have expressed their desire to join the military to counter the US. The claim came after North Korea on Thursday launched its Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in response to ongoing US-South Korea military drills, reported CNN.
North Korea launched the intercontinental ballistic missile, (ICBM) Hwasongpho-17, amid the ongoing South Korea-US Freedom Shield (FS) exercise, which the country has decried as "preparations for a war of aggression" against it, according to Yonhap News agency.
After the launch of the missile, North Korea confirmed they had fired it, adding that it was a "stronger warning" to the US and South Korea for their provocative and aggressive large-scale war drills.