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| The moment the North Korean missile leaves the launch pad placed on the railway tracks. (File photo by= REUTERS) |
[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] SEOUL: South Korea's military announced that North Korea fired two suspected short-range ballistic missiles eastward from an airfield in Pyongyang on Monday, in the recalcitrant regime's fourth show of force this year.
According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), it detected the projectiles fired from the Sunan airport at 8:50 a.m. and 8:54 a.m., respectively, and that they flew about 380 kilometers at an altitude of 42 km. The missiles traveled at a top speed of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, an informed source revealed. The North's latest weapons test appears aimed at enhancing its ability to consecutively launch missiles with increased accuracy, a JCS official said on condition of anonymity. The official added that South Korea's military possesses capabilities to both detect and intercept the projectiles in question, and has continuously been reinforcing its system to respond to them.
As to the type of the missile launched Monday, the JCS is looking into "various possibilities," including the projectile being the KN-23 modeled after Russia's Iskander mobile ballistic missile, according to the official. Meanwhile, the KN-23 missile is known to employ a so-called pull-up maneuver: a technique designed to avoid interception and thus complicate South Korea's missile defense efforts.
