South Korea scrambled about 80 stealth fighter jets and other aircraft after detecting more than 180 North Korean military aircraft activities in various locations, Seoul’s defense officials said.
“Our military detected around 180 North Korean warplanes” mobilized in Pyongyang’s airspace, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, adding that Seoul “scrambled 80 fighter jets including F-35As,” while jets involved in the joint drills were also “maintaining readiness.”
The North Korean planes, including fighters and bombers, were all flying north of the Tactical Action Line (TAL), JCS said, suggesting there were no violations of the existing inter-Korean agreements. The planes were spotted flying between around 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. over its inland areas as well as off the western and eastern coasts without approaching close to the inter-Korean border, JCS said.
The deployment came a day after Pyongyang fired about 30 missiles in two days, including an intercontinental ballistic missile and one that landed near South Korea’s territorial waters for the first time since the end of the Korean War in 1953. North Korea fired a record number of 23 missiles into the sea in a single day
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol described the North Korean missile tests as “territorial encroachment” and Washington denounced it as “reckless”.
United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin described Pyongyang’s actions as “illegal and destabilizing”.
Tensions in the Korean Peninsula began mounting after the United States and South Korea began joint exercise called “Vigilant Storm”. Around 240 South Korean and U.S. planes are taking part in their “largest-ever” joint air force drills.
The North has fiercely protested the ongoing combined air drills, saying the military exercises are preparing for an eventual attack on its territory.
Meanwhile, the United States underscored its ‘ironclad’ security commitment to the defense of the South during the visit of South Korea’s Minister of Defence Lee Jong-sup to US Air Force’s Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Thursday with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
