South Korea and the United States have recently staged a combined special operations exercise, the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said Monday, amid joint efforts to reinforce deterrence against North Korean military threats.
The two-week exercise mobilized U.S. Army Special Forces Green Berets and a U.S. Navy SEAL team of the U.S. Special Operations Command Korea, as well as South Korean troops from the Army's Special Warfare Command and police officers from the Special Operations Unit, according to the USFK in a Facebook post.
"The event culminated with a full mission profile exercise in an urban-environment training range with the intent of recovering time sensitive targets in a dynamic training environment," it said, without disclosing the exercise's exact date and location.
"This is one of the routine combined training events in which U.S. and ROK personnel enhance the mutual defense priorities for the region and serves as an integrated deterrence," David Kim, a spokesperson for the USFK, said.
ROK stands for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.
The exercise's disclosure came amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the East Sea earlier in the day.
The latest launch took place less than a day after the North launched a short-range ballistic missile into the water the previous day.
Source: Yonhap News Agency