The stealthy, high-tech F-22 planes capable of sneaking past radar undetected landed at Osan Air Base near Seoul after the flyover escorted by other US and South Korean fighter jets.
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Four U.S. radar-evading fighter jets flew from Japan’s Okinawa island to Seoul Wednesday in response to this month’s long-range rocket launch, and a B-52 long-range bomber flew across the South last month after Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test.
If the Raptors were ever sent North to fight, they would face a decaying air fleet mostly outdated Soviet-era types – the most modern and capable being the Mikoyan MiG-29 “Fulcrum” procured from the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, as well as the swing-wing MiG-23 and Sukhoi Su-25 ground-attack jet.
South Korean officials have said authorities lacked legal power to monitor and defend against possible attacks from radical groups, and the legislation was not designed specifically to defend against threats from North Korea.
The U.S. military would not say how long the F-22s will be deployed in South Korea.
South Korean intelligence officials have informed lawmakers that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered preparations for terror attacks on South Koreans.
The government said there was a possibility that the North will wage terrorist attacks using poisons or kidnapping South Koreans.
North Korea has a history of attacks against South Korea, but it is impossible to independently confirm what is really happening in the secretive North.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye delivers her speech at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, February 16, 2016.
The number of the United States forces that will participate in an annual joint military exercise with South Korea this year will be four times as many as the figure last year, amid a recent uptick in tensions with North Korea over its recent nuclear and long-range rocket tests.
Officials also fear the tyrant could target activists and defectors with poisoning attacks or lure them to China in order to be kidnapped.
The Saenuri official refused to say whether the briefing discussed how the information was obtained.
Still, it would be meaningful for Seoul, which has been developing its own missile defense system to counter the North’s shorter-range arsenal, to acquire multiple layers of protection as Pyongyang continues to diversify its weaponry, said Jin Moo Kim, an analyst at the government-funded Korea Institute for Defense Analysis.
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The North says the drills are preparation to stage an invasion.
