North Korea fired a barrage of suspected ballistic missiles and issued a warning to the U.S. over joint military exercises, less than two days after Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket designed to hit the American mainland.
Japan’s Coast Guard said it appears North Korea fired three missiles on Monday, with one falling into the waters outside of its exclusive economic zone.
The U.S. held aerial drills with South Korea and Japan in a show of force on Sunday, after Pyongyang conducted an intercontinental ballistic missile test over the weekend, as the tit-for-tat military moves added to simmering tensions in the region.
“We affirm once again that there is no change in our will to make the worst maniacs escalating the tensions pay the price for their action,” Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, was quoted by official media as saying.
North Korea on Saturday fired a Hwasong-15 ballistic missile that flew for more than an hour and reached an altitude of more than 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles). It landed in waters off of Japan’s main northern island of Hokkaido.
The latest launches come after North Korea put on its biggest display of ICBMs during a military parade in Pyongyang earlier this month. Kim Jong Un oversaw the event with his daughter on hand to watch from a seat of honor. The attendance of his daughter signaled there’s another generation ready to take over the Cold War’s last continuous family dynasty and it will depend on nuclear weapons for its survival.
Images from the parade included 11 of its Hwasong-17 missiles, which experts say is the world’s largest road-worthy ICBM, and five canisters for an apparent new solid-fuel ICBM.
All of the ICBMs were on mobile launchers, and the most of their type ever displayed at a parade. This increases his chances of a strike that could overwhelm US missile defenses. The solid-propellant missiles would be easier to move and quicker to fire than the state’s current arsenal of liquid-fuel ICBMs, giving Washington less time to shoot one down.
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—With assistance from Shinhye Kang and Seyoon Kim.
