North practices striking, occupying South in command post exercise

North Korea conducted a command post exercise to rehearse striking and invading South Korean territory, Pyongyang's state media reported Thursday, the same day that Seoul and Washington concluded their 11-day joint exercise.

In this photo released on Thursday by Pyongyang's state-controlled Korean Central News Agency, regime leader Kim Jong-un reviews the North's war plans during his visit to a command post of the Korean People's Army on Tuesday. [YONHAP]

North Korea conducted a command post exercise to rehearse striking and invading South Korean territory, Pyongyang's state media reported Thursday, the same day that Seoul and Washington concluded their 11-day joint exercise.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected the drill during a visit to a command post of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) on Tuesday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The KCNA report on Kim’s visit marks the first time that Pyongyang’s state media has disclosed command post training for a specific component of the regime’s war plans.

According to the KCNA, Kim called for critical strikes against South Korean military command centers and communications to degrade Seoul’s military capabilities in the opening stages of a potential war.

“He stressed the need to destroy enemy morale, throw their combat action plans into confusion and paralyze their will and capability to fight from the outset,” the report said.

Kim also called for “simultaneous and super-intense strikes” against not only key South Korean military targets, but also other core facilities to unleash “social, political and economic chaos,” the KCNA reported.

In this photo released by Pyongyang's state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Thursday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un points at a map of South Korea during his visit to a North Korean military command post. Kim called for heavy strikes against South Korean command centers and communications to cripple Seoul's military capabilities in the event of armed hostilities, according to the KCNA. [YONHAP]

Photos released by Pyongyang’s state media showed the North Korean leader pointing to maps of various regions in South Korea, including the area in South Chungcheong where the South’s Gyeryongdae military headquarters are located.

Gyeryongdae is where the headquarters of all three branches of the South Korean military — the Army, Navy, and Air Force — are located.

In a separate report, the state news agency said the regime also carried out a “tactical nuclear strike drill” to practice “scorched-earth” tactics against military command nodes, airfields and other military targets in South Korea on Wednesday night.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) told reporters that the North fired two short-range ballistic missiles off its eastern coast at 11:40 p.m. and 11:50 p.m. Wednesday.

The JCS reported that each missile flew 360 kilometers (223.7 miles) before landing in the East Sea.

The distance traveled by the two missiles, which was the same as the distance to Gyeryongdae, appeared to underline the North’s ability to carry out strikes against key South Korean military targets.

The North's state-controlled Korean Central News Agency announced that the regime fired two missiles into the East Sea as part of a ″nuclear tactical strike drill″ in response to the deployment of a U.S. B-1B long-range supersonic bomber to the Yellow Sea for a joint South Korean-U.S. air force exercise on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

The North Korean military warned the missile launches were intended to send a “clear message to the enemies” who “challenge” the North “with military threats, such as the deployment of strategic nuclear assets, despite our repeated warnings,” according to the KCNA.

The report appeared to refer to the deployment of at least one B-1B long-range supersonic bomber to a joint South Korean-U.S. air force exercise over the Yellow Sea on Wednesday.

The allies’ Ulchi Freedom Shield joint exercise began on Aug. 21 and is scheduled to conclude on Thursday, although some drills, such as those being carried out by their Navy special operations units, will continue into September.

The North tactical nuclear strike drill was aimed at highlighting the regime’s “resolute punitive will and substantive retaliation capabilities,” according to the KCNA.

In comments carried by state media, Kim blasted the joint exercise by South Korean and U.S. forces, whom he characterized as “military gangsters.”

“Their frequent and expanded military exercises under different codenames constitute a clear revelation of their scheme to invade” the North, Kim was quoted as saying by the KCNA.

Pyongyang has long condemned joint exercises by Seoul and Washington as “dangerous and provocative” rehearsals for invading its territory.

The North’s command post exercise is “aimed at occupying the entire territory of the southern half [of the peninsula] by repelling the enemy’s sudden armed invasion before switching to an all-out counterattack,” according to the KCNA.

While the scenario laid out by the North’s state media is premised on an invasion by the South Korea and the United States, almost all incursions and violent incidents across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that divides the Korean Peninsula since the signing of the Korean War armistice were initiated by North Korean forces.

The war itself, which began in June 1950 and ended with only a ceasefire in July 1953, started with a premeditated North Korean invasion of South Korea with Soviet and Chinese backing.

The North’s open threat to invade the South was condemned by Seoul’s Unification Ministry on Thursday.

“The more the North obsesses over military threats and provocations, the more it will face an overwhelming response by South Korea, the U.S. and Japan,” a ministry official said in a comment to reporters.

South Korea and the United States have characterized their combined exercises as being defensive in nature and designed to bolster their joint readiness against North Korea’s advancing missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Defense officials in Seoul said Thursday that the South Korean Army mobilized hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles and howitzers over four days of drills starting Monday to bolster the country’s readiness against North Korean military threats.

The South Korean Army's 7th Engineer Brigade and the U.S. Army 2nd Infantry Division's 814th Engineer Company conduct a combined river-crossing exercise in Cheorwon, Gangwon, on Thursday. [NEWS1]

During the period, K-2 tanks and K-9 howitzers from the 11th Maneuver Division based in Hongcheon County, Gangwon, traveled approximately 100 kilometers on Tuesday to reach Gapyeong County, Gyeonggi, while the Capital Mechanized Infantry Division based in Gapyeong moved K-1A2 tanks, K-21 armored vehicles and K9 self-propelled howitzers over 110 kilometers on Wednesday to Cheorwon County, Gangwon, where they conducted live-fire drills.

Defense officials said that the South Korean Army’s 7th Engineer Brigade and the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division also held a combined river-crossing exercise in Cheorwon on Thursday.

BY LEE HO-JEONG,MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]