B-1Bs

The US will deploy B-1B Lancer bombers over Korean Peninsula for joint aerial drills with U.S. and South Korean fighters, Yonhap News reports, citing military authorities.

The B-1B squadron will fly from the Anderson Air Force Base in Guam today, and will be deployed to participate in the United States Air Force's "Vigilant Ace"  which as we reported over the weekend is the “largest-ever” joint US aerial drill to be held together with South Korea. The squadron of tactical bombers will practice bombing runs under the cover of South Korean warplanes.

Echoing a report from earlier this week, when on Wednesday the Seoul-based Asia Business Daily reported that North Korea is preparing to fire multiple short-range rockets around the opening of the Chinese Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress on Oct. 18 - arguably the year's most important geopolitical event - on Saturday the South Korean press claimed that "North Korea is believed to be preparing to launch a ballistic missile ahead of an upcoming joint naval drill by the US and South Korea", according to a government source.

As part of South Korea’s response to the latest escalations out of its northern neighbor, the country's defense minister on Monday said it was "worth reviewing the redeployment of American tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula" to guard against the North, a step that analysts warn would sharply increase the risk of an accidental conflict. On Monday, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo said that he asked his American counterpart, Jim Mattis, during talks at the Pentagon last week that strategic assets such as  U.S.

Less than a month after the US flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean Peninsula to show off "US attack capabilities", the US Air Force did it again on Sunday, when it the flew two supersonic B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in "a show of force" on Sunday after Pyongyang's Friday test of an ICBM that can reach the continental US.

The US sent two B-1B Lancer strategic bombers from Guam's Andersen Air Force Base base to the Korean Peninsula, to practice “attack capabilities” with South Korean jet fighters and hold live-fire drills on Saturday, Yonhap News reported, the latest show of force by the US military after North Korea’s first-ever ICBM test launch on July 4. The pair of US bombers flew conducted a simulated destruction of an enemy ballistic missile launcher and underground facilities, the South's air force said, sending a strong hint to its northern neighbor.