By Yi Whan-woo
The military said Wednesday that two U.S. B-1B Lancer strategic bombers conducted a bombing drill over South Korea, Tuesday.
This is the latest U.S. show of force in the region following North Korea’s series of ballistic missile tests last month.
The U.S also deployed the B-1B bombers on July 30 and August 8 in response to North Korea’s two intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests.
“We’re told that the U.S. sent two B-1B bombers yesterday morning,” a military official said Wednesday. “We believe such a deployment was not made public yesterday because it was part of a routine exercise.”
The long-range bombers entered South Korean airspace after departing from Anderson Air Base on Guam.
They entered from air space above the East Sea and were joined by F-15K and F-16 fighter jets in the drill.
They flew westward and headed back to Guam after ending the exercise.
North Korea, which has reacted angrily about the deployment of U.S. strategic assets on the Korea Peninsula, denounced the flight by the bombers.
“The U.S. made a military provocation again, bringing notorious nuclear bombers above South Korean airspace and threatening us,” Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
In a statement carried by the KCNA, the People’s Army mentioned the B-1B flight and claimed that it was considering a plan to strike the U.S. military base in Guam using Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missiles.
The B-1B Lancer is one of the American military’s three major multi-role, long-range bombers along with the B-52 Stratofortress and the B-2 Spirit.
Dubbed the “swan of death,” the B-1B bomber is the fastest among the three and has more payload capacity than a B-52 Stratofortress or a B-2 Spirit.