North Korean Submarine ‘Goes Missing’ As US And South Korean Soldiers Carry Out Amphibious Landing Exercises

North Korea has been searching for one of its submarines that has been missing for days off its east coast as tensions mount in the region, where U.S. and South Korean troops staged a big amphibious landing exercise today.

The submarine may be adrift under the sea or have sunk, perhaps after a technical problem during an exercise, CNN quoted U.S. officials with intelligence of secret U.S. monitoring of the North’s activities as saying.

The missing submarine comes after North Korea has said it is developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles although doubts about that were raised after Western experts said publicly released footage of tests appeared to be fake.

Following Kim Jong-Un’s ballistic missile launch claims, US and South Korean troops practised storming simulated North Korean beach defences on the east coast.

The landing and assault drills on South Korea’s east coast were part of eight weeks of joint exercises and are believed to be the largest exercises between the two allies. The North has denounced the exercises as ‘nuclear war moves’ and threatened to respond with an all-out offensive.

Tension on the North Korean peninsula has been high since the North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and followed that with a long-range rocket launch last month, triggering new U.N. sanctions.

About 55 U.S. marine aircraft and 30 U.S. and South Korean ships, including the USS Bonhomme Richard and USS Boxer, which carry AV-8B Harrier attack jets and V-22 Osprey aircrafts, took part in the assault on beaches near Pohang city, the U.S. navy said.

‘They will penetrate notional enemy beach defenses, establish a beach head, and rapidly transition forces and sustainment ashore,’ the U.S. military based in South Korea said in a statement before the exercise.

The North’s military said it was prepared to counter the U.S. and South Korean forces ‘with an ultra-precision blitzkrieg strike of the Korean style’.

‘The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK (North Korea) holding tightly the arms to annihilate the enemies with towering hatred for them are waiting for the dignified Supreme Command to issue an order to launch a preemptive strike of justice,’ the state KCNA news agency said. source

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