North Korea’s Kim supervises firing drills simulating preemptive attacks on South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised firing drills involving nuclear-capable “super-large” multiple rocket launchers to show the country’s ability to carry out preemptive attacks on rival South Korea, state media reported Friday.

The firing exercises are an apparent reference to the suspected barrage of ballistic missile test-launches that South Korea said North Korea conducted on Thursday. Experts say North Korea’s large-sized artillery rockets blur the boundaries between artillery systems and short-range ballistic missiles because they can create their own thrust and are guided during delivery.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency reported its latest weapons tests are meant to demonstrate North Korea’s resolve not to hesitate to launch a preemptive strike on South Korea, if threatened. It cited Kim as saying that the drills “will serve as an occasion in clearly showing what consequences our rivals will face if they provoke us.”

KCNA accused South Korea of staging a “clumsy counteraction of dangerous armed demonstration against the exercise of legitimate sovereign right” of North Korea.

That refers to a South Korean aerial exercise performed hours before North Korea’s failed spy satellite launch on Monday night. If successful, North Korea would have placed its second spy satellite into orbit. Kim Inae, a spokesperson of South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said Seoul “strongly condemns” North Korea for issuing verbal threats of preemptive strikes against the South and for violating U.N. Security Council resolutions with its weapons demonstrations and the space launch attempt.

The multiple rocket launchers are one of North Korea’s main weapons systems targeting South Korea. North Korea