SEOUL (Reuters) - The navies of&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korea, the U.S. and&nbsp;Japan&nbsp;will&nbsp;hold&nbsp;two days of&nbsp;anti-submarine&nbsp;exercises starting Monday to better&nbsp;counter&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea's evolving nuclear and missile capabilities,&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korea's defence ministry said.
The&nbsp;drills&nbsp;will be staged in international waters off&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korea's&nbsp;southern island of Jeju, involving a U.S. carrier strike group led by&nbsp;USS Nimitz, which had arrived in the&nbsp;southeastern city of Busan last week.
The trilateral&nbsp;drills&nbsp;come as&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;unveiled last week new, smaller nuclear warheads, vowed to produce more weapons-grade nuclear materials to expand its arsenal, and boasted of what it called a nuclear-capable underwater attack drone.
This week's exercises will&nbsp;use a mobile&nbsp;anti-submarine&nbsp;warfare training target to improve the capabilities needed to detect, track and destroy&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korean underwater&nbsp;threats, the ministry said.
The three countries last held trilateral&nbsp;anti-submarine&nbsp;drills&nbsp;in September - the first time in five years - amid tension over&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea's unprecedented number of missile tests.
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(Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

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South Korea, US, Japan hold anti-submarine drills to counter North Korea threats