North Korea tests an intermediate-range ballistic missile

North Korea launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile off its east coast on Sunday, an indication, analysts said, that the country has begun testing a new and harder-to-intercept weapon that could reach US military bases in the western Pacific. including those on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean. Guam.

The missile was launched Sunday afternoon from near Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, but did not fly over Japan, like some of the IRMBs North Korea has launched in the past. Instead, it fell in the waters between North Korea and Japan, over a distance of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), South Korean military officials said.

The launch was the North's first missile test since it fired a Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile on December 18.

North Korea first tested the Hwasong-18, its first solid-fuel ICBM, in April 2023 and launched the same type of missile twice more last year, a sign of the country's increasing shift to solid-fuel ballistic missiles. Because they are easier to transport and faster to launch than liquid-fueled rockets, they are more dangerous.

North Korea has tested a series of short-range solid-fuel ballistic missiles since the 2019 collapse of direct diplomacy between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and President Donald J. Trump.

So far, all medium-range ballistic missiles, including the Hwasong-12, rely on liquid fuel.

South Korea has not provided any further details about the missile that North Korea launched on Sunday. But it was most likely a new intermediate-range ballistic missile that the North has developed, said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

In a interview Speaking to the Yonhap news agency last week, the South's Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said North Korea could start testing a new solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile as early as this month.

The first indication that North Korea was developing a solid-fuel IRB-M came on November 15, when the country said it had conducted ground tests of solid-fuel engines for such missiles.

Sunday's test was the first confirmed intermediate-range ballistic missile launch since it fired a Hwasong-12 over Japan in October 2022, although some analysts have said a failed test the North conducted on November 22 may have involved the new rocket. solid fuel rocket.

North Korea raised alarms in the region in 2017 when it twice launched a Hwasong-12 over Japan, demonstrating it had a missile capable of reaching Guam. Earlier that year, the country had threatened to launch four intermediate-range ballistic missiles into the waters around Guam after Trump warned of “fire and fury” against the North.

The United States and its allies have become increasingly concerned about North Korea's frequent missile tests under Mr. S. Kim as the country claims to have developed nuclear warheads that it can mount on its various missiles, and openly has threatened to use it in war.

​At a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party in late December, Mr. Kim called for “a strong struggle for the implementation of the nuclear weapons production plan by 2024.”