Multiple
sources have told NK News that North Korea has been conducting
unprecedented mass evacuation and blackout drills in cities and towns
along the east coast of the country as tensions between North Korea
and the US continue to rise.
North
Korean citizens reportedly practiced leaving their homes and blacking
out their lights in case of a bombing campaign, the Telegraph
reported.
On
Saturday, during his visit with South Korea's Defense Minister Song
Young-moo in Seoul, US Defense Secretary James Mattis said, "North
Korea has accelerated the threat that it poses to its neighbors and
the world through its illegal and unnecessary missile and weapons
programs," and that US and South Korean military and
diplomatic cooperation has taken on "a new urgency,"
USA Today reported.
Mattis
also warned that the US does "not accept a nuclear North
Korea" and that "any use of nuclear weapons by the
North will be met with a massive military response, effective and
overwhelming."
These
evacuation drills and Mattis' declaration come in the wake of regular
offensive drills by the United States over the last several months,
which rehearse both conventional and nuclear attacks against sites in
North Korea and against its leadership.
Experts
are unsure whether the peculiar North Korean drills are indicative of
the country's fear of US retaliation or of wanting to create the
image of protecting its citizens.
Retired
South Korean General Chun In-bum said that these drills are unlike
anything he has ever experienced. "I have never heard of this
type of training exercises before in North Korea but [I] am not
surprised. They must realize how serious the situation is,"
Chun said.
Christopher
Green, author of the 2016 book "Continuity and Change in North
Korean Politics," told the Telegraph that he is divided on
"whether genuine security concerns are driving this, or the
wish to portray the image of a government that has concerns over
security."
Although
daily air raid drills also allegedly took place in 1994 when tensions
between Washington and Pyongyang increased over North Korea's nuclear
power development program, such drills are not common.
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