SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired several ballistic missiles into the sea Monday, South Korea’s military said, hours after South Korean and U.S. troops kicked off their large annual combined drills, which the North views as an invasion rehearsal.

North Korea condemned an ongoing U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise Wednesday, saying another incident like Seoul's recent accidental bombing of its own village near the DMZ could lead to "a new armed conflict.

In a statement issued via state media on Monday, the North Korean Foreign Ministry called the Freedom Shield drills "a dangerous provocative act of leading the acute situation on the Korean peninsula, which may spark off a physical conflict between the two sides by means of an accidental single shot, to the extreme point."

The launch happened hours after South Korean and U.S. troops kicked off their large annual combined drills, which the North views as an invasion rehearsal.

Last week's accidental shelling of a South Korean village occurred less than 20 miles from the border of the nuclear-armed North.

The US and South Korea paused their live-fire drills after the incident but the Freedom Edge 25 drills will continue through March 20 as per schedule

North Korea has issued a sharp rebuke over the major military exercise being carried out by the U.S. and its South Korean ally, labeling the training a "war rehearsal." Newsweek reached out to the Pentagon and the South Korean embassy in the U.