US Bomber Deployed For Joint Drills Amid Inter-Korean Tensions Simmer

South Korean Defence Ministry said that the country's air force held a joint live-fire bombing drill involving at least one US bomber B-1B for the first time in seven years as tensions on the peninsula continue to simmer amid a series of provocations by the North.

• The recent days have seen North Korea fly trash-loaded balloons over the border, jam GPS signals, conduct short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) tests and attempt to launch a military spy satellite alongside the continued flow of combative rhetoric.
• South Korea's intelligence agency reported signs that the North has been dismantling sections of its part of the inter-Korean railway in another sign of a hawkish shift in its foreign policy and the renouncement of any unification efforts.
• As part of the wider collapse of inter-Korean cooperation, Seoul earlier this week said that it would restart all military activities prohibited by the 2018 tension reduction pact, as North Korean provocations effectively render the agreement void.