North Korea on Thursday afternoon fired four presumed ballistic missiles into the East Sea, just a day after the reunions of families separated by the Korean War ended."The North fired four projectiles which we presume were short-range ballistic missiles from Kitdaeryong in Anbyon, Kangwon Province in a northeasterly direction into the sea," a Defense Ministry official here said. "We presume the missiles to have a range of more than 200 km."
A military source said the firing was either an exercise or a show of force in response to the ongoing joint South Korea-U.S. military drills.
The projectiles were probably Scud-series ballistic missiles, military authorities speculated.
In Kitdaeryong, a mountainous area about 40 km south of Wonsan, trucks carrying missiles and launchers are easily concealed.
On Monday, a North Korean patrol boat crossed the de facto maritime border in the West Sea three times, in what was probably another exercise in coat-trailing.
Some other pundits speculate that the missiles were fired in response to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry describing the North as an "evil place."
| Good. Let Jahwn call them some more names, and maybe they'll deplete their missile supplies... |