North Korea said the launch of several missiles on Saturday was part of a live-fire exercise involving long-range artillery and missile units, Reuters and state media KCNA reported, quoted by News.bg.
In the “joint firepower exercise“ Five army divisions participated, testing several weapons systems, including strike drones, tactical cruise missiles, tactical ballistic missiles and multiple rocket launchers for large-caliber multiple launch rocket systems.
The exercise will boost the morale of servicemen and improve their ability to “completely destroy the enemy“ when given the order, an artillery chief said.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Saturday that North Korea had fired several short-range ballistic missiles that flew about 250 km into the sea off its east coast.
The launch came a day after South Korea, the United States and Japan concluded a five-day trilateral “Freedom Edge“ exercise aimed at countering threats by the DPRK.
Demonstration of an integrated strike network
The KCNA statement came two days after the launch, which was the 13th known ballistic missile launch by North Korea this year. North Korean state media has also remained silent about several other recent missile tests reported by South Korea.
“This was not a test of a single weapon system, but a demonstration of an integrated strike network,” said Lim Il-chul – a professor at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam“ University in Seoul.
North Korea appeared to have demonstrated its ability to coordinate drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and rocket artillery through a unified command and control system, Lim said.
The absence of leader Kim Jong-un and the delayed announcement of the drill suggest Pyongyang wanted to present the event as a “technical and practical military exercise” while carefully regulating the level of tension, Lim said.
“North Korea is also collecting operational data on the actual deployment of these weapons and demonstrating tactics aimed at overwhelming South Korean and US missile defenses through simultaneous attacks with weapons that have different flight characteristics,” he explained.