North Korea fires ballistic missiles that flew more than 900 kilometres
Pyongyang fired several ballistic missiles towards the East Sea on Monday morning – four days after South Korea's first publicly disclosed hypersonic missile test.
Archive image · Photo: Jan Engelhardt / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
North Korea fired several ballistic missiles towards the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, on Monday morning, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The launches from the Pyongyang area were detected at around 9:20 a.m. local time. "The detected North Korean missiles flew more than 900 kilometers," JCS spokesperson Jang Do-young said, according to broadcaster SBS. South Korean and US authorities are analysing the exact specifications. The JCS could not initially say whether they were hypersonic or intermediate-range weapons: "We need a more detailed analysis," a JCS official said.
According to SBS, it is North Korea's 16th ballistic missile launch this year and the first from the Pyongyang area since Aug. 20. On Oct. 3, the country fired a missile from the Wonsan area, which Pyongyang described as an intermediate-range strategic missile with a hypersonic warhead. South Korea, the United States and Japan are maintaining full readiness and sharing information, the JCS said.
The launches came four days after South Korea's first publicly disclosed test of a domestically developed hypersonic glide vehicle on Oct. 8, which President Lee Jae-myung observed. The JCS did not say whether North Korea was responding to it. Seoul's own test was reportedly a response to a landmine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone that South Korean officials judged highly likely to have involved North Korean troops. The JCS said it had strengthened surveillance and readiness for possible additional launches.