North Korea said Saturday that any South Korean and United States attempt to locate its mobile missile launchers would be futile, issuing sarcastic remarks on a recent South Korean military drill to detect and destroy the North's transporter-erector-launcher (TEL).

The South Korean Navy's special warfare troops carried out training to infiltrate into enemy territory and locate and destroy the North's TELs in the east coast region on Aug. 24, as part of the annual Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercises held jointly with the U.S.

The North has used TELs to move a ballistic missile and stand it upright to avoid surveillance by spy satellites.

The Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the North's ruling Workers' Party, said in a commentary that the South Korean military's Aug. 24 drills targeting TELs was nothing but "laughable."

"Our strategic weapons are ready to thoroughly annihilate the strongholds of aggression and provocation from any unpredictable region and place anytime," said the commentary.

"The U.S. and Japan have mobilized all their intelligence assets for 24-hour surveillance on us but failed to detect the launch time and place of our ballistic missiles."

It then noted that even the U.S. highly evaluated the North Korean military for its camouflage, concealment and deception capabilities.

"Any attempt by the puppets to detect and destroy our TELs in advance is nothing but a silly dream. The puppets in South Korea will never avoid catastrophes as long as they continue to run amok," said the commentary.

Another commentary in the same North Korean newspaper also harshly condemned Japan's moves to reinforce its missile defense systems to intercept the North's ballistic missiles. (Yonhap)

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