South Korea and the United States fired a volley of missiles in response to North Korea’s launch of a ballistic missile over Japan.
Nuclear-armed North Korea tested a nuclear missile further than ever before, causing one to fly over Japan for the first time in five years and issue a warning to take cover.
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It was the fifth rocket test ordered by the rogue tyrannical ruler Kim Jong-un in recent days.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called the launch a “provocation” and promised a “severe response”.
That came in the form of the South and the US each firing a pair of US-made short-range ATACMS ballistic missiles into the Yellow Sea off North Korea.
The fighters of the two countries also practiced precision bombing of a target in the sea.
US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned North Korea’s test in “the strongest terms”.
The European Union called it a “reckless and deliberately provocative action”, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was a violation of Security Council resolutions.
The last time Pyongyang fired a missile over Japan was in 2017, at the height of a period of “fire and fury”.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un exchanged insults with then-President Donald Trump of the United States before the pair finally met in a failed bid achieve peace on the Korean peninsula.
During the final test – that of Pyongyang fifth launch in a week – Japan ordered its citizens to evacuate buildings or take shelter underground.
South Korea’s The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the test appeared to be an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launched from North Korea’s Jagang province.
North Korea has conducted several recent tests from there, including multiple missiles it said were “hyperonic”.
The missile may have been the Hwasong-12, which North Korea unveiled in 2017 as part of a plan to attack US military bases in Guam, said Kim Dong-yup, a former South Korean naval officer.
Fighter planes from the United States and Japan also conducted joint exercises over the Sea of Japan as the three countries flexed their military muscles.
A US aircraft carrier made a port call in South Korea on September 23 for the first time since 2018.
The period also saw joint exercises by the United States, South Korea and Japan, and a visit to the fortified border between the Koreas by US Vice President Kamala Harris.
Despite decades of US-led sanctions, North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear bomb programs have not stopped.
Kim Jong-un has shown no interest in returning from a failed diplomacy he pursued with Trump.
His mighty sister rejected South Korea’s offerr of an economic boost in exchange for the abandonment of nuclear weapons by the north.
Kim Yo-jong said the country “will never deal” with a “daring” initiative.
Such a plan was ignorant and “the height of folly far from realization,” she said.