North Korean Scud missile flies six minutes, falls provocatively close to Japan
It was the North’s third ballistic missile test in as many weeks and the 12th this year - carried out in defiance of UN sanctions warnings and US threats of possible military action.
North Korea fired at least one short-range ballistic missile on Monday that landed in the sea off its east coast, the latest in a fast-paced series of missile tests defying world pressure and threats of more sanctions.
The missile was believed to be a Scud-class ballistic missile and flew about 450 km, South Korean officials said. North Korea has a large stockpile of the short-range missiles, originally developed by the Soviet Union.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test of a new ballistic missile controlled by a precision guidance system and ordered the development of more powerful strategic weapons, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported on Tuesday.
The missile was equipped with an advanced automated pre-launch sequence compared to previous versions of the “Hwasong” rockets, KCNA said.
“Whenever news of our valuable victory is broadcast recently, the Yankees would be very much worried about it and the gangsters of the south Korean puppet army would be dispirited more and more,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
“He expressed the conviction that it would make a greater leap forward in this spirit to send bigger ‘gift package’ to the Yankees” in retaliation for American military provocation, KCNA said.