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The U.N. Security Council condemned the launch, and Pyongyang has since made a series of threats against Seoul's conservative government and media, vowing to attack unless it got an apology for perceived insults against the country and its new, young leader, Kim Jong Un. Thousands of civilians and officials -- including South Korea's prime minister
-- watched Friday's drills. The United States, which has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea, deployed Apache helicopters, A-10 Thunderbolts and armored vehicles for the drills, Seoul's Defense Ministry said in a statement. Kim Jong Un took power as supreme leader of North Korea and its 1.2 million troops after his father, longtime ruler Kim Jong Il, died in December. North Korea has condemned what it calls Seoul's insensitivity to Kim Jong Il's death and South Korean media criticism of important national events in the North. In recent months, North Korea has ramped up harsh rhetoric against South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who ended Seoul's no-strings-attached aid to Pyongyang after he took office in 2008, with posters and slogans that repeatedly call Lee a "rat." North Korea has also "drastically" increased fighter jet drills near the border with South Korea in the first half of this year, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said, declining to be named because of office rules. The official wouldn't provide further details. On Thursday, the navies of the United States, South Korea and Japan began two-day annual search and rescue exercises near the southern South Korean island of Jeju. Starting Saturday, the United States and South Korea planned three-day naval exercises off South Korea's west coast that include the aircraft supercarrier USS George Washington.
[Associated
Press;
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