The powerful B-1B Lancers, flanked by US and South Korean fighter jets, flew over Osan Air Base south of Seoul on Tuesday in a show of force and solidarity with Seoul four days after the North conducted its fifth and most powerful nuclear test.
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South Korea has said it has a plan to annihilate the North Korean capital if it shows any signs of mounting a nuclear attack. The United States has an unshakable commitment to defend allies in the region and will take necessary steps to do so, including operations like this one today.
North Korea mocked a USA show of force as bluster, calling flights by bombers near its border reckless “bluffing”.
A US Air Force B-1B bomber flies over Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, September 13, 2016.
General Vincent Brooks of US Forces Korea and General Lee Sun Jin of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said during a joint press conference that they will continue to prepare themselves against North Korea’s “continued aggressive behaviour”.
To foil the North’s plans, said USA -based Korea expert Jonathan Pollack of the Brookings Institution, the world must move fast in assessing its weapons capabilities, what it could achieve in the long run and the most practicable means of defending the countries under threat. The significance of these bombers is that they are capable of holding the largest possible payload, and it marks the first time in 10 years that the USA has had a bomber force in the Pacific.
In August, the United States placed B-1B aircraft at the Air Force Base in Guam to counter North Korean nuclear and missile threats.
Those missions covered more than 7,000 hours of flight time.
North Korea is keenly aware of the USA presence on the peninsula and of what it considers the US nuclear threat.
North Korea’s anxious neighbors, South Korea and Japan, have been calling for a stronger response, Elise says. Washington also stations more than 28,000 troops in the South, and tens of thousands more in Japan. Videos of such flyovers appear in North Korean propaganda as evidence of USA hostility, the AP notes.
Although the latest sanctions imposed tough blocks on North Korea’s financial transactions overseas, Pyongyang has reaffirmed its willingness to further develop atomic weapons to guarantee its “survival”.
CNN’s Will Ripley has stated that North Korea definitely took notice of the fly-over. South Korea’s military said it was about 10 kilotonnes, enough to make it the North’s “strongest nuclear test ever”. The stealthy F-22s were joined by South Korean F-15s and US Air Force F-16s in that display at Osan AB.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report more than 35,500 homes were damaged, two-thirds of them completely destroyed, and 107,000 people had been displaced by the floods.
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The paper called the United States a “troublemaker” and said it has no right to advise China to take responsibility in restraining the North from carrying out missile launches.
