North Korea fires FOUR ballistic missiles at Japan with three landing in its waters as PM warns of ‘new stage of threat’
South Korea military say the missiles launched from the Tongchang-ri region where Kim Jong-un launched previous rockets
NORTH Korea fired four ballistic missiles at Japan in what prime minister Shinzo Abe called a "new stage of threat".
The missiles were launched in an apparent protest against ongoing joint military drills between South Korea and the United States.
Three of the rockets landed in the sea within Japan's territory.
They were launched from Tongchang-ri is near the North's border with China, where the isolated state fired a long-range rocket last year that put an object into orbit.
This was condemned by the United Nations for violating resolutions that ban the use of missile technology.
South Korean military chiefs say the latest missiles launched on Monday morning travelled around 620 miles before smashing into the sea.
It means they could be an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the US mainland, although this needs to be confirmed.
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Officials in the US military and intelligence communities told CNN they were looking at the data from the North Korean launch.
Last month North Korea claimed it had successfully test-fired a new kind of ballistic missile in a launch supervised by leader Kim Jong-un.
The nation is banned by the UN from any tests of missile or nuclear technology.
Meanwhile it emerged yesterday in a report in the that the US is waging a round-the-clock cyber war against North Korea's missile programme.
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