SEOUL, Nov. 4 (UPI) — South Korea scrambled fighter jets after detecting North Korean warplanes flying north of the border for four hours on Friday, Seoul defense officials said.
South Korea’s military detected about 180 flights of North Korean military aircraft between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., the defense ministry said in a text message to reporters.
In response, South Korea “urgently scrambled its superior air force,” including around 80 F-35A stealth fighter jets, the message said.
Another 240 U.S. and South Korean aircraft participating in an ongoing large-scale joint air drill, called Vigilant Storm, also “maintained a readiness posture,” the defense ministry said.
Pyongyang condemned what it called the “aggressive and provocative military drill” on Tuesday and warned that the United States and South Korea would pay a “terrible price” if they attacked the North.
The five-day Vigilant Storm exercise was scheduled to end on Friday but Seoul announced that the allies would extend the drill in response to North Korea’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile Thursday.
After its ICBM launch, North Korea fired 80 artillery shells into the East Sea overnight, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said early Friday morning. The shells landed inside the buffer zone north of the Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean maritime border, the JCS said.
Friday’s flights were the latest in a string of provocations by North Korea as tensions remain at their highest level in years on the Korean Peninsula.
On Wednesday, North Korea fired a barrage of missiles, including one that landed south of the Northern Limit Line, prompting an air raid alert on the island of Ulleungdo and a retaliatory missile launch by Seoul. Pyongyang fired a total of 23 ballistic and surface-to-air missiles, its largest-ever total for one day.
Last week, North and South Korea exchanged warning fire near the NLL after Seoul said a vessel from the North crossed into its territorial waters.
