North Korea tests ICBM with range to reach US

Seoul: The atmosphere in the Korean Peninsula is becoming more and more explosive. North Korea, which has threatened to launch massive attacks on the US, tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday. South Korea and Japan claim that North Korea has directly warned the United States since the US is within the range of this ballistic missile that can travel up to 15,000 kilometres. In the next few hours, the US and South Korea retaliated against North Korea by firing laser-guided bombs in an aerial exercise.

Over the past year, North Korea was on a missile testing spree and fired short-range and medium-range rockets and missiles. But suddenly, in the past two weeks, North Korea has started firing ballistic missiles. On Friday morning local time, North Korea’s military launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) off the east coast at around 10:15 local time (02:15 GMT). The missile reached a height of 1000 km and crashed about 200 km from the island of Oshima, Japan.

The information was received from the Defense Ministry of Japan and South Korea. For the second time in the last ten days, a North Korean missile entered Japan’s territorial waters, which Japan criticized. Last month, a North Korean missile entered Japan’s airspace, the Japanese Defence Ministry underscored. ‘The intercontinental ballistic missile launched on Friday has a range of more than 15,000 kilometres. This missile could reach New York in the Far East of the United States,’ the Japanese Ministry of Defense warned.

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said Japan strongly condemns North Korea’s provocative missile tests causing tension in East Asia. The Prime Minister of Japan told North Korea that such activities would not be tolerated. Prime Minister Kishida is in Thailand for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation-APEC meeting. After North Korea conducted this test, the US and South Korean air forces conducted a special exercise on Friday. F-35 stealth fighter jets of both countries participated in it. At this time, the GBU-12 laser-guided bomb was dropped from the F-35 aircraft. Moreover, local media claim the US and South Korea conducted this exercise to send a warning to North Korea.