South Korea scrambles fighter jets after detecting 180 North Korean warplanes, military says - CNN

Seoul, South Korea CNN  — 

South Korea scrambled astir 80 combatant jets aft detecting a ample fig of North Korean warplanes during a four-hour play Friday, the country’s subject said, successful a further escalation of determination tensions.

In a statement, the South Korean subject said it spotted astir 180 North Korean subject craft betwixt 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. section time, a time aft Pyongyang is believed to person conducted the failed trial of an intercontinental ballistic rocket (ICBM).

Tensions successful the Korean Peninsula began rising Monday, erstwhile the “Vigilant Storm” associated subject drills began betwixt the United States and South Korea, involving hundreds of craft and thousands of work members from some countries, according to the US.

North Korea accused the allies of provocative enactment and connected Wednesday launched 23 missiles from its eastbound and westbound coasts – the astir missiles it’s fired successful a azygous time – into waters either broadside of the peninsula, prompting Seoul to respond with 3 surface-to-air missiles.

Friday’s South Korean deployment included an unspecified fig of F-35A stealth combatant jets, the connection said, and the South Korean warplanes participating successful the ongoing associated maneuvers had besides “maintained a readiness posture,” the South Korean subject said.

After Thursday’s suspected ICBM test, the US and South Korea announced they’d widen the drills for an other time until November 5, a determination denounced by a North Korean authoritative arsenic a “very unsafe and mendacious choice,” according to authorities media.

Later, aft gathering with his South Korean counterpart astatine the Pentagon, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin accused North Korea of “irresponsible and reckless activities.”

“We’ve said earlier these kinds of activities are destabilizing to the portion potentially. So we telephone connected them to cease that benignant of enactment and to statesman to prosecute successful superior dialogue,” Austin said.

A United Nations Security Council gathering is expected to instrumentality spot connected Friday to sermon Pyongyang’s caller rocket launches. According to a spokesperson for the US Mission to the UN, the US, UK, France, Albania, Ireland and Norway had called for an unfastened meeting.

In an interrogation connected CNN connected Wednesday, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield condemned North Korea’s actions, saying Pyongyang had breached aggregate Security Council resolutions.

Thomas-Greenfield said the UN would beryllium “putting pressure” connected China and Russia to amended and heighten specified sanctions. She declined to accidental whether US President Joe Biden would rise sanctions with China’s President Xi astatine the G20 but said it was “on the President’s mind.”