South Korea Holds Anticipation Exercises For North Korea's Sudden Attacks On Seoul

Illustration of South Korean military exercises. (Wikimedia Commons//Republic of Korea Armed Forces)

JAKARTA - More than a thousand South Korean military, police and emergency response personnel participated in Wednesday's rare defense joint exercise, simulating North Korean attacks on the country's capital Seoul, to address concerns that the city was within the distance of Pyongyang's attacks and covert attacks.

The drills were carried out amid rising tensions, after North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and launched its first military spy satellite.

"There was a big lesson for us when Israel's world-class advanced defense system was helpless under a sudden Hamas attack armed with conventional artillery and primitive equipment," Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said.

He further explained that the cross-border attacks carried out by the militant group on October 7 through Israeli cities showed superior military capabilities did not mean much if the enemy succeeded in carrying out a sudden attack.

Wednesday's drills simulated attacks on major water supply facilities, telephone network stations to power lines corridors and underground communications.

Oh said Seoul's 38 km (24 miles) from the military border with North Korea made it very vulnerable to attacks at any time.

Being a densely populated center of government, business and finance, Seoul is home to 9.4 million people, with an additional 1.4 million people working and attending school there every day.

Oh is known to have taken a hardline stance against North Korea, arguing South Korea should have its own nuclear weapons as the only way to neutralize the threat from Pyongyang.

Pyongyang successfully conducted its latest ballistic missile test this month, following the successful launch of its first military spy satellite in November. Previously, a constitutional revision in September designated the use of nuclear weapons as a national defense policy.