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November 5, 2024 | 02:20 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - North Korea fired a salvo of short-range ballistic missiles on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, Seoul's military said. These were Pyongyang's second launch in days and just hours before the U.S. presidential election.
They were fired at around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday (2230 GMT on Monday) from the vicinity of Sariwon, North Hwanghae Province, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
"In preparation for additional launches, our military has strengthened surveillance and alertness," it said, adding it was sharing information with Japan and the U.S.
At least seven missiles flew to an altitude of 100 km (62 miles) and covered a range of 400 km before falling outside Japan's exclusive economic zone into the ocean, Japan's Defence Minister Gen. Nakatani said.
Last Thursday, North Korea test-fired what it said was its most advanced and powerful solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-19. It was Kim Jong Un's first weapons test since being accused of sending soldiers to Russia.
It also came just hours after U.S. and South Korean defense chiefs called on Pyongyang to withdraw its troops, warning that North Korean soldiers in Russian uniforms were being deployed for possible action against Ukraine.
On Sunday, South Korea, Japan, and the United States conducted a joint air drill involving a heavy bomber in response to the ICBM launch. The drill mobilized the US' B-1B bomber, South Korea's F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets, and Japan's F-2 jets.
Such joint drills infuriate Pyongyang, which views them as rehearsals for invasion.
Kim Yo Jong, sister of the country's leader and a key spokesperson, called the drill an "action-based explanation of the most hostile and dangerous aggressive nature of the enemy toward our Republic."
In a statement carried Tuesday by the official Korean Central News Agency, she said the drill was "absolute proof of the validity and urgency of the line of building up the nuclear forces we have opted for and put into practice."
She warned that any "upset of the balance of power between rivals on the Korean peninsula and in the region precisely means a war."
"If the ICBM was meant for the U.S., the latest ballistic missiles are for South Korea," said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
"Directly, it is to protest the joint air drills by South Korea, the U.S., and Japan. Indirectly, it is to show off their presence last minute before the U.S. presidential election," said Yang, who also saw the intent as to deflect the international community's attention away from criticizing the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia.
Experts have suggested the spate of weapons tests by Pyongyang could be a bid to distract attention from its purported troop deployment to Russia or bump itself up the agenda ahead of the U.S. election.
Seoul has long accused North Korea of sending weapons to help Moscow fight Kyiv and alleged that Pyongyang has moved to deploy soldiers en masse in the wake of Kim Jong Un's signing of a mutual defense deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June.
CHANNEL NEWS ASIA | REUTERS
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