SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Thursday condemned a looming South Korea-US joint military exercise as a "declaration of war" and boasted of its ability to make retaliatory strikes against Seoul and the White House.
The annual, two-week "Ulchi Freedom" exercise, which kicks off Monday, involves tens of thousands of troops in what is a largely computer-simulated rehearsal for a North Korean invasion.
It is one of a number of annual joint drills that Washington and Seoul insist are purely defensive in nature, but which Pyongyang condemns as provocative rehearsals for a full-scale attack on the nuclear-armed North.
This year's Ulchi Freedom comes at a time of particularly heightened tensions, following a recent landmine attack on a South Korean border patrol that Seoul blamed on North Korea.
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