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Tag: ballistic missile

  • Kim Jong-un applauds his current ballistic missile launch

    Kim Jong-un applauds his current ballistic missile launch

    Kim Jong-un, who appeared to be enjoying himself, grinned as he observed North Korea launch yet another ballistic missile.

    According to state media, the nation launched its most recent and potent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Wednesday, which traversed 1,000 km and flew for 74 minutes.

    Kim may be seen cheering the missile from the command post in pictures of the launch that were published by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

    KCNA reported that the easy-going tyrant, wearing a white suit jacket, ‘personally guided the test-fire of a new-type ICBM Hwasongpho-18 on the spot’.

    He was joined by his wife Ri Sol Ju, General Kim Jong Sik and other top officials.

    According to state media, Kim was ‘greatly satisfied’ with the results of the test run, with photographs showing him standing up to applaud.

    Kim Jong-un has made it a habit to oversee missile launches (Picture: AFP)
    North Korea’s leader stoop up to applaud after the launch (Picture: AFP)

    Yesterday’s solid-fuel ICBM was its first test in three months, South Korea’s military said, with the missile landing in waters between North Korea and Japan.

    ‘The test-fire had no negative effect on the security of the neighbouring countries,’ KCNA reported.

    The launch was organised by the Missile General Bureau, a government agency that South Korean experts say was revealed in February to make it clear that the nation is a nuclear weapons state.

    The Hwasongpho-18 was one of many ICBMs, strategic cruise missiles and short-range missiles North Korea has fired in recent years.

    Kim has long shown his face at missile launches as North Korea’s propaganda wing moves into first gear as the US and South Korea beef up their alliance.

    He has been photographed hunching over in black suits as he watches the ballistic missiles blast off with a pair of binoculars.

    In March last year, Kim threw on a ‘Top Gun-style’ leather flight jacket and black aviator sunglasses as he emerged out of a warehouse to oversee a missile test.

    Footage released by state media even had the moment he walked across the site in slow motion with the hunkering missile behind him.

    As the missile shoots up into the sky, the Workers’ Party of Korea general secretary whipped off his sunglasses before shouting ‘hooray’.

    Though the dictator isn’t always so buttoned or zipped up.

    In October, Kim strayed from his usual all-black attire and donned a white tunic and a safari-style hat for an unplanned missile test.

    It came during a month marked by increasingly aggressive and proactive missile tests, with an intermediate-range ballistic missile flying over northern Japan on October 4 triggering alarms and prompting panicked residents to seek shelter.

    Only two days later, the nation rehearsed the launching of ‘nuclear warheads’ before firing two cruise missiles deployed at units operating ‘tactical nukes’ on October 12.

    The following month – which saw North Korea fire at least 46 ballistic missiles – Kim revealed his daughter to the world for the first time.

    He was pictured walking hand-in-hand with his ‘beloved daughter’, state media said, wearing casual coats as a massive Hwasong-17 looms behind them.

  • North Korea launches a ballistic missile into the East Sea: S Korea

    The launch is the latest in a record year of missile tests by North Korea, and it comes as the results of the US midterm elections are announced.

    North Korea has launched a ballistic missile toward the sea off the country’s east coast, the first launch since last week’s barrage of missile launches and heavy artillery fire that saw more than 30 missiles land in the seas off the Korean peninsula, according to South Korea’s military.

    The Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea said Wednesday that it detected the launch of a short-range ballistic missile from an area in or around North Korea’s Sukchon in South Pyongan Province at around 3:31 p.m. local time (06:30 GMT).

    Fired towards the East Sea, which is also known as the Sea of Japan, the missile’s “flight distance was detected at about 290 kilometres (180 miles), an altitude of about 30 kilometres, and a speed of about Mach 6”, South Korea’s military reported.

    Japan’s Kyodo news agency, citing a Japanese government source, said the missile landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from the country’s coastline.

    Japan’s Coast Guard also tracked the missile and said it appeared to have fallen into the sea minutes after the launch was first reported.

    The launch is the latest in a record year of missile tests by Pyongyang, including an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) last week, and comes at a time of growing concern that North Korea could be preparing for its first test detonation of a nuclear device since 2017.

    The missile launch also comes as the United States – South Korea’s main military ally – counted votes in the  country’s midterm elections, which will determine whether US President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party maintains control of the House of Representative and the Senate or loses one or both to the Republican Party.

    Earlier on Wednesday, South Korea said it had identified debris from an earlier North Korean missile launch as part of a Soviet-era SA-5 surface-to-air missile.

    A South Korean Navy ship used an underwater probe to recover the missile, which was the first time a North Korean ballistic missile had landed near South Korean waters.

    North Korea’s military said the launches were simulated attacks on South Korea and the United States, criticising their exercises as an “dangerous, aggressive war drill.”

    The SA-5 is an air defence missile originally designed by the Soviet Union, where it was designated the S-200, to shoot down strategic bombers and other high-altitude targets.

    The missile was exported around the world, and is still in service in at least a dozen countries, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.