by Frances Martel, Breitbart:
Communist North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Thursday that flew for 86 minutes, a record for Pyongyang, suggesting it is capable of reaching the continental United States.
South Korean and Japanese military observers tracked the missile, documenting that it traveled 621 miles across and flew to about 4,300 miles in altitude. The missile fell in the East Sea/Sea of Japan. The missile appeared to be fired intentionally at a very steep angle to not land on any populated target, but show the world it is capable of hitting America if necessary.
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Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed the missile launch shortly after it occurred, calling it a “very crucial test” necessary to show the world the “modernity and creditability” of North Korea’s nuclear threats.
Kim Jong-un issued a statement directly on Thursday defending the threatening launch as an “appropriate military activity,” but not directly describing it as a ploy related to the schedule of the American presidential election. The ICBM, he claimed, “fully meets the purpose of informing the rivals [South Korea and America], who have intentionally escalated the regional situation and posed a threat to the security of our Republic recently, of our counteraction will.”
“It also constitutes an indispensable process in the course of constantly developing our state’s strategic attack forces,” he continued. “We should never allow any threat to approach the security sphere under our state’s influence.”
“The security situation of our state and ever-aggravating prospective threats and challenges require us to continue to bolster up our modern strategic attack forces and more perfectly round off our nuclear forces’ response posture,” he concluded, vowing to never denuclearize his country.
The KCNA report did not identify what kind of ICBM North Korea launched on Thursday. Pyongyang often boasts of the specific model missile that it fires. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) similarly noted that it did not have enough evidence to confirm the model launched and stated that it could potentially be an entirely new ICBM model. The latest known model of North Korean ICBM is the “Hwasong-18,” which Kim Jong-un first ordered a test-launch of in July 2023. South Korean experts predicted based on the information North Korea published on the missile model that it could potentially hit any part of the continental United States. North Korea had not launched an ICBM in about a year.
“Early assessment showed there is a possibility (North Korea) may have test-fired a new type of solid-fuel long-range ballistic missile,” JCS spokesperson Lee Sung-jun said on Thursday. The Korea JoongAng Daily also reported, citing an unnamed JCS official, that South Korean military experts believe Pyongyang used a different mobile launcher than those previously used for older models, adding to evidence that the ICBM may have been an entirely new missile.
