By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
The world's biggest computerized military exercise got underway in South Korea Monday, despite North Korea warning its southern neighbor not to go ahead with the drill.
Pyongyang had threatened "the strongest military counteraction" if Seoul and its ally the U.S. did not abandon the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG), which brings together close to 80,000 troops over 12 days.
On Monday, it resumed a campaign of blasting propaganda by loudspeakers across its border, days after the South had done the same in response to a landmine explosion just south of the tense inter-Korean border.
While the South and the U.S. maintain that the exercise is defensive, North Korea has repeatedly condemned their military movements as preparations for war.
The North's threat at the end of last week came as Pyongyang rejected a United Nations Command allegation that it was behind recent landmine explosion.
North Korea also warned that it would launch "indiscriminate strikes" unless the South calls off its own renewed propaganda broadcasts, which aim to undermine the reclusive state's strict control of information.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye expressed her concern Monday over increasing tensions on the peninsula.
"We need to maintain a strong military readiness to protect our people's lives and their properties from North Korea's provocations... at a time when military threats posed by North Korea are on the rise," Park was quoted by local news agency Yonhap as saying at a Cabinet meeting.
Part of the military drill in South Korea this week is a legacy of North Korea's failed assassination attempt on Park's father, Park Chung-hee, when he was president in 1968.
