Kim Jong Un leads artillery firing drill with Seoul in 'striking range'

SEOUL, March 8 (UPI) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw an artillery firing drill that included a demonstration of long-range units that can bombard Seoul, state-run media reported Friday.

Kim guided the drill by the North Korean army's large combined units at a training ground on Thursday, Korean Central News Agency reported.

"The drill started with the power demonstration firing of the long-range artillery sub-units near the border who have put the enemy's capital in their striking range," the KCNA report said.

Seoul, the capital of South Korea with a population of 10 million, is roughly 35 miles from the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas. In November, the North scrapped a 2018 inter-Korean military accord meant to reduce tensions along the border.

Kim said the drill was necessary to prepare the artillery units to "take the initiative with merciless and rapid strikes at the moment of their entry into an actual war," according to KCNA.

The drill came a day after Kim visited an army training base and called for intensifying war preparations.

South Korea's military said it detected live-fire artillery drills toward the Yellow Sea on Thursday near the port city of Nampo, involving dozens of multiple rocket launchers and self-propelled howitzers.

"If North Korea commits a provocation, we will retaliate overwhelmingly and resolutely," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message sent to reporters.

The artillery drill was held as the United States and South Korea continued their annual Freedom Shield exercise, which kicked off on Monday.

The 11-day exercise has a focus on countering threats from the nuclear-armed North and includes 48 joint field drills, almost twice as many as last year.

"Our military maintains a solid defense posture and is conducting the ongoing Freedom Shield exercise and joint training while closely watching for signs of North Korea's provocations and military activities," the JCS said.

North Korea regularly condemns the allies' joint exercises as rehearsals for an invasion and has used the drills in the past as a pretext for its own missile tests.

Earlier this week, North Korea's Defense Ministry condemned the Freedom Shield exercise as part of a "military threat to a sovereign state" and warned that Seoul and Washington will be "made to pay a dear price."

The United States and South Korea have increased their military cooperation in response to the North's s provocations, with expanded drills and the deployment of U.S. assets such as aircraft carriers, a B-52 nuclear bomber and a nuclear ballistic missile submarine to the Korean Peninsula.