North Korea fires 4 missiles, 3 into Japan waters

It was not immediately clear what type of missile was fired, but Pyongyang (North Korea’s capital) has staged a series of missile test-launches of various ranges in recent months. 

The ramped-up tests come as leader Kim Jong Un pushes for a nuclear and missile programme that can deter what he calls US and South Korean hostility toward the North. South Korea’s military said that North Korea fired “several” banned ballistic missiles that flew about 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) into waters off its east coast, also known as the Sea of Japan. 

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said North Korea fired four missiles “almost simultaneously”, three of which landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone. 

The South Korea’s Joint Chief of Staff said in a statement that Monday’s launches were made from the Tongchang-ri area in North Pyongan province. The area is the home of the North’s Seohae Satellite Station where it has conducted prohibited longrange rocket launches in recent years. 

The North hates the military drills, called Foal Eagle, which runs until late April and which analysts say force its impoverished military to respond with expensive deployments and drills of their own.

The United States has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against a potential aggression from the North. An unidentified spokesman for the North’s General Staff of the Korean People’s Army said last week that Pyongyang’s reaction to the southern drills would be the toughest ever but didn’t elaborate.

 “Now that the US imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces again kicked off the dangerous nuclear war drills against the DPRK at its doorstep, our army will counter them with the toughest counteractions,” a spokesman had said in a statement. There has also been widespread worry that the North will conduct an ICBM test that, when perfected, could in theory reach US shores. Washington would consider such a capability a major threat.