North Korea fired a salvo of at least 10 ballistic missiles on Saturday, in what may be Pyongyang’s largest single display of strength of its kind.
The show of force came at a time when the United States and South Korea were conducting annual large-scale joint exercises involving thousands of troops, but analysts said it was also designed to send a message during Donald Trump’s war with Iran.
South Korea’s military on Saturday said that it detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan” district in Pyongyang towards the East Sea at around 1.20pm local time.
They flew roughly a distance of 350km before landing in the sea, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding that the South Korean military was ready to "respond overwhelmingly to any provocation”.
Japan’s Coast Guard was monitoring multiple missiles that landed outside its exclusive economic zone, according to a statement from the Japanese defence ministry.
It added that the missiles flew at an altitude of 80km and covered a range of 340km before splashing down in the waters.
Japanese defence minister Shinjiro Koizumi said there were no reports of damage to planes or ships.
“The prime minister has instructed us to make every effort to gather and analyse information and to provide the public with timely and accurate information,” he said.
It is over three years since North Korea undertook a comparable mass launch of missiles, with a November 2022 test involving 23 weapons in a single day. That incident involved seven short-range ballistic missiles alongside 16 other projectiles, among them six surface-to-air missiles.
Analysts viewed the test in the context of a Middle East conflict where Iran on one side and the US and Israel on the other have exchanged waves of damaging ballistic missile and drone strikes.
North Korea, they said, wants to show it has the capabilities to overwhelm missile defences and survive preemptive strikes.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said Kim Jong Un is likely drawing lessons from the US and Israel’s joint operation on Iran.
He said North Korea has been focusing resources on its navy lately, with possible support from Russia. But with America demonstrating its ability to sink most of the Iranian navy within a matter of a single week, the Kim regime is trying to show that it “could inflict unacceptable harm if its naval forces come under attack” with this latest test.
Pyongyang will also have noted that the US has relocated some of its air defence assets from South Korea to the Middle East during the Iran conflict, and may see this as a moment that leaves Seoul “vulnerable to pressure”, Easley said.
“North Korea is unlikely to take military action when it observes US redeployment of missile defence assets from the Korean Peninsula to the Middle East. Instead, Pyongyang will aim propaganda at aggravating divisions in Seoul over the strategic flexibility of US forces and the legality of Trump’s military action against Iran,” he said.
The launches coincide with annual US-South Korea military drills from 9-19 March that North Korea views as a rehearsal for invasion. Washington and Seoul, meanwhile, say such exercises are only necessary because of Pyongyang’s aggressive expansion of its military and nuclear capabilities.
The 11-day Freedom Shield exercise is one of two annual command post exercises conducted by the two militaries. The largely computer-simulated drills are designed to test the allies' joint operational capabilities, while incorporating evolving war scenarios and security challenges. Freedom Shield will be accompanied by a field training program called Warrior Shield.
Yonhap News earlier reported comments by South Korean prime minister Kim Min Seok who said that Donald Trump remains hopeful of a meeting with Kim Jong Un during his upcoming trip to China.
The prime minister told Mr Trump that South Korean president Lee Jae Myung views the US leader as the only person capable of resolving tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the report said.
Without directly referring to the Iran war, Mr Kim's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, said the US-South Korea drills undermine regional stability at a time when the global security structure is “collapsing rapidly and wars break out in different parts of the world due to the reckless acts of outrageous international rogues.”
North Korea’s foreign ministry has released separate statements denouncing the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran and expressing support for Tehran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
