North Korea claimed Friday morning that it tested an “underwater nuclear attack drone” this week amid joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, according to state media Korean Central News Agency.
The new submarine weapon is designed to “stealthfully infiltrate operational waters” and target naval strike groups and enemy ports, North Korea claimed.
“This underwater nuclear attack drone can be deployed to any coast and port or towed by a surface ship to operate,” KCNA said in a statement. A test warhead exploded in the waters off Hongwon Bay on Thursday afternoon, North Korea said.
The weapons test came as the US and South Korea wrapped up Freedom Shield 23, a series of military exercises around the Korean Peninsula that began on March 11. The US, India, Japan, Canada and South Korea also began Sea Dragon 23 last week, an anti-submarine warfare exercise in the Indo-Pacific region.
US-SOUTH KOREA EXERCISES RELEASE NORTH KOREA, PENTAGON CLAIMS HOURS AFTER NORTH KOREA LAUNCHES ICBM
North Korea criticized “US imperialists and the traitorous puppet regime of South Korea” for the drills, saying the political situation on the Korean Peninsula is at “an irreversibly dangerous point”.
“The scenario of war against the DPRK by hostile forces based on the deployment of huge strategic nuclear assets, the amount of forces involved in carrying it out, and the resulting peculiar mode of warfare urgently require the DPRK to make all its armed forces are blinded to all-out war,” Pyongyang’s state media said.
North Korea also fired several strategic cruise missiles from South Hamgyong Province on Wednesday.
US Army Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley told Congress on Thursday that China remains the US’s “number one long-term geostrategic security challenge,” but noted that North Korea is also a major threat in the region.
“North Korea’s continued ballistic missile testing and development of nuclear weapons pose real threats to our homeland, as well as to allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific,” Milley told the Appropriations Committee of the Chamber.
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