NORTH KOREA – SEOUL: North Korea flexed its military muscle with the test of a huge new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed Hwasong-19, state media said on Friday (Nov 1), amid international uproar over its troops deployed to aid Russia in Ukraine. The launch on Thursday flew higher than any previous North Korean missile, according to the North as well as militaries in South Korea and Japan that tracked its flight deep into space before it splashed down in the ocean between Japan and Russia.

State news agency KCNA lauded it as “the world’s strongest strategic missile”. While questions remain over North Korea’s ability to guide such a missile and protect a nuclear warhead as it reenters the atmosphere, the Hwasong-19, like North Korea’s other latest ICBMs, demonstrated the range to strike nearly anywhere in the United States.

“The new-type ICBM proved before the world that the hegemonic position we have secured in the development and manufacture of nuclear delivery means of the same kind is absolutely irreversible,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said while overseeing the launch, KCNA reported. The launch, days before Tuesday’s US presidential election, drew swift condemnation from Washington and its allies in South Korea, Japan and Europe, as well as the United Nations secretary-general.

“The missile continues to underwrite the growing credibility of North Korea’s strategic deterrent capabilities,” said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adding that Kim appeared specifically interested in communicating that message to the US.

The South Korean and US air forces conducted first-ever joint live-fire attack drills on Friday with unmanned aerial vehicles, flying the Global Hawk and the Reaper drones, dropping GPS-guided munitions in simulated strikes against enemy target, South Korea’s air force said. (Channelnewsasia)

Photo: A man watches a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test. (AFP) …[+]