Pyongyang,North Korea. n breaking news from today, North Korea launched a ballistic missile in the direction of a US Navy carrier task force group “training” off the coast of Korea, no word of a response by American forces has been recieved as of yet.
The North Korean military missile test center fired several suspected short-range anti-ship missiles Thursday, South Korea’s military said, in a continuation of defiant launches as it seeks to build a nuclear missile capable of reaching the continental United States.
North Koreas missile tests present a difficult challenge to new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal elected last month who has expressed a desire to reach out to Pyongyang. North Korea, which could have a working nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile in the next several years, may also be the most urgent foreign policy concern for the Trump administration, which has been distracted by domestic political turmoil and has insisted China do more to rein in the North’s weapons activities.
The projectiles were fired from the North Korean eastern coastal town of Wonsan and likely flew about about 125 miles, while reaching a maximum altitude of about 1.2 miles, South Korea’s Military Joint Chiefs of Staff said. They landed in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where US aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan participated in joint exercises with the South Korean navy that ended earlier this week. Both carriers are expected to be joined by the USS Nimitz shortly.
The DPRK recently premiered a powerful new midrange missile that it said could carry a heavy nuclear warhead. American intelligence experts said that rocket flew higher and for a longer time than any other missile previously tested by North Korea, and that it could reach targets as far away as Hawaii and Alaska.
The North in following weeks launched a solid-fuel midrange missile that can be fired on shorter notice than liquid fuel missiles, and also what it descried a new “precision-guided” missile, which experts say is designed with a maneuverable terminal stage meant to frustrate missile defense systems like the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense that the South Korean President Moon has requested the US to remove, after a dispute over how many systems the Americans had brought into South Korea.