North Korea said it fired a “new type of intermediate-range ballistic missile” at Japan last week “to show a clearer message to its enemies.”
North Korea reportedly fired a “new type of intermediate-range ballistic missile” at Japan last week “to show a clearer message to its enemies.”
“To deal with the unstable situation on the Korean peninsula, we made a decision on October 4 to send a stronger and clearer warning to enemies and took the step of hitting an area in the Pacific 4,500 kilometers away with long-range ballistic missiles. intermediate of a new land-land type, ”said the state agency KCNA.
This government announcement refers to the launch on October 4 of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which flew over the north of the Japanese archipelago for the first time since 2017 and led the Japanese authorities to activate the civil alert in the area. .
This was the longest distance North Korean projectile to date, some 4,500 kilometers with an apogee of about 1,000. In response, US fighter-bombers carried out military exercises alongside Japanese planes over the Sea of Japan and F-15 planes fired precision bombs over the Yellow Sea.
This launch was part of military exercises carried out by Pyongyang between September 25 and October 9, said the state agency KCNA, which sought to “verify and evaluate the country’s nuclear war deterrence and counterattack capacity.”
North Korea also launched two short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan (called the East Sea in Korea) during the early hours of Sunday morning, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) announced.
Both missiles traveled about 350 kilometers and reached an altitude of about 100 kilometers, landing in waters outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Sunday’s launch comes after Pyongyang fired two short-range missiles on the 6th. This is the 25th test of the Asian country so far this year.