North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters, South Korea’s military said, hours after the US flew at least one long-range bomber to the Korean Peninsula.

Iran PressAsia: South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missiles were launched late Wednesday evening from North Korea’s capital region.

It said South Korea’s military boosted its surveillance posture and maintained its readiness in close coordination with the United States.

Japan’s Defence Ministry also announced that North Korea fired at least one suspected ballistic missile.

Earlier Wednesday, the United States flew a B-1B bomber to the Korean Peninsula as part of field exercises with South Korea. The field training is being held on the sidelines of an ongoing annual US-South Korean computer-simulated command post exercise called “Ulchi Freedom Shield” that kicked off on August 21, and it is set to end Thursday.

North Korea views US-South Korean military drills as an invasion rehearsal.

North Korea is sensitive to the deployment of US B-1B bombers, which are capable of carrying a large payload of conventional weapons.

Wednesday’s B-1B deployment is the 10th flyover by US bombers on the Korean Peninsula this year.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said the bomber took part in aerial drills with other US and South Korean warplanes in waters off the Korean Peninsula’s west coast. 

In their latest provocative act against North Korea, South Korea, the US and Japan, on Tuesday, mobilised naval destroyers for a trilateral missile defence exercise off South Korea’s southern Jeju island.

Kim said in a speech marking the country’s Navy Day on Monday that the waters off the Korean Peninsula have been made unstable “with the danger of a nuclear war” because of US-led hostilities, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

The US and South Korea have expanded their drills, resumed trilateral training involving Japan, and enhanced “regular visibility” of US strategic assets at the Korean Peninsula. In July, the United States deployed a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for the first time in four decades.

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