SEOUL: North Korea reportedly tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as a warning to the United States (US) and South Korea.
The missile that was launched towards the east of the Korean peninsula reportedly fell into Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone area.
Reported by AFP, it was a surprising exercise that successfully demonstrated Pyongyang’s lethal nuclear counterattack capacity against the enemy.
The supreme leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un ordered the surprise launch exercise to be carried out at 8 am, last Saturday.
At that time, the Hwasong-15m missile, a weapon that North Korea first tested in 2017, was fired from Pyongyang’s airport.
North Korea’s leadership, however, hailed the country’s first test in seven weeks as demonstrating the true warfighting capacity of an ICBM unit ready to make a mobile and powerful counterattack.
The launch is real evidence that the country has the capacity to launch a deadly nuclear counterattack against enemy forces.
US-based analyst Ankit Panda told AFP Saturday’s test was important because the event was not a traditional ‘test’, but a practice.
“We should hope to see training like this,” he added.
A former analyst of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who now works at the management consulting firm LMI, Soo Kim, said the exercise looked like Jong Un telling the US and South Korea about its ballistic missile capabilities.
“The weapon is not just for display. This may be intended to intimidate allies,” he said.
Source: Utusan
