US holds drills with Asian allies after North Korea’s ICBM launch

The United States has held air exercises with South Korea and Japan involving strategic bombers, a day after North Korea fired a Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the exercises on Sunday demonstrated the allies’ “overwhelming” defence capabilities and readiness.

 “[The exercises] strengthened the combined operation capability and affirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defence of the Korean Peninsula and the implementation of extended deterrence,” South Korea’s military said in a statement.

Japan flew F-15 fighter jets over the East Sea (Sea of Japan) with US B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters, Japan’s defence ministry said in a statement. It called the security environment “increasingly severe” after the latest North Korean missile landed within its Exclusive Economic Zone.