By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The United States has deployed radar-evading B-2 bombers to an air force base in Guam, according to reports, Sunday.
The deployment comes amid growing tensions in the region over North Korea's alleged moves to test-fire a long-range missile capable of hitting U.S. soil and ahead of massive joint military training exercises by South Korean and U.S. troops to be held from March 9 to 20 in multiple locations throughout South Korea.
North Korea has said it plans to launch a satellite on a rocket as part of a peaceful space program.
Andersen Air Force Base, in Guam, is a major operational hub for U.S. forces in the Pacific, which would support South Korean troops and U.S. forces on the peninsula in the case of war.
The U.S. Air Force has already deployed F-22 Raptors, the world's most advanced stealth fighter, to the base.
Air Force General Howie Chandler, commander of U.S. Pacific Air Forces, was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying that the ``rotational'' deployment was not designed to deliver a political message, but to showcase an element of advanced U.S. military power in the Pacific at a time of heightening tensions over North Korea.
Four B-2 bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri replaced a rotational B-52 bomber unit on Feb. 25 on Guam, according to Colonel Donald Langley, a spokesman for Chandler.
A typical bomber rotation lasts four months, he said.
``It just so happens that this is the first time'' such a presence overlapped with the F-22s, he was quoted as saying.
The B-2 Spirit was built by Northrop Grumman and is a multi-role heavy bomber fitted with stealth technology that is capable of penetrating dense anti-aircraft defenses. It deploys both conventional and nuclear weapons.
The aircraft was previously used for Cold War operation scenarios in the 1980s and in combat to drop bombs on Kosovo in the late 1990s. They see continued use in Iraq and Afghanistan
The bomber can drop up to eighty 500 lb (230 kg) JDAM ``smart'' bombs, or sixteen 2,400 lb (1,100 kg) B83 nuclear bombs, in a single pass, through extremely dense anti-aircraft defenses.
In the lastest move to ratchet up tensions in the region, Pyongyang accused the U.S. miltiary, Saturday, of provocative acts near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which divides the two Koreas.
The communist state referred to photos of North Korean miltiary installations on the northern side of the heavily fortified border taken by U.S. forces, as well as U.S. surveilance activities near the DMZ.
South Korea and the United States dismissed the North's claim, saying such activities are legal as the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) is in charge of maintaining the truce on the peninsula.
South and North Korea have remained technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a ceasefire, not a permanent peace treaty. About 28,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as a deterent against North Korea.
The head of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command concurrently serves as chief of the UNC and U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).