N Korea launches new ballistic missiles equipped with 'super-large warheads'

North Korea has test-fired new ballistic missiles equipped with super-large warheads and modified cruise missiles, the third time in a week as part of Pyongyang’s display of military power in the restive Korean Peninsula.

The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Wednesday that the tests involved new tactical Hwasongpho-11-Da-4.5 missiles, a series of short-range ballistic missiles mounted with 4.5-ton super-large conventional warheads.

The North's military also tested a strategic cruise missile that has been upgraded for combat use, KCNA added.

The agency said the tests came following North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s call for the use of stronger conventional weapons and nuclear capabilities to improve the country’s arms capabilities required for dealing with grave threats posed by outside forces.

KCNA quoted Kim, who oversaw the tests, as stressing "the need to continue to bolster up the nuclear force and have the strongest military technical capability and overwhelming offensive capability in the field of conventional weapons too.”

North Korea's state media reported the tests of missiles with the same name in July and released on Thursday photographs of a projectile striking a target in a hilly area.

In reaction to the latest tests, South Korea's military said two ballistic missiles landed in a mountainous area in the North's northeast.

North Korea had a day earlier fired a salvo of short-range ballistic missiles, with Japan also confirming the launch.

Last Thursday, Pyongyang fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles into waters east of the Korean peninsula, the first major weapons test by the nuclear-armed country since early July.

South Korea-US security exercise in Washington 'nuclear blackmail': North Korea

North Korea decries South Korea-US security exercise in Washington as "nuclear blackmail.

In recent months, the United States has increased its regional deployment of long-range bombers, submarines and aircraft carrier strike groups to train with South Korean and Japanese forces.

North Korea has criticized war games  by the South Korean and US militaries, including a large-scale exercise conducted this summer, as preparations for war on the Korean Peninsula.

The war games have been carried out to trigger a belligerent response from North Korea to justify the presence of extra-regional forces amid Pyongyang’s verbal threats of nuclear conflicts against Washington and Seoul.

The North Korean leader has repeatedly warned Washington’s regional allies against expanding military ties with the US which could cause war to “break out at any time."

Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo conducted their first-ever war games after US President Joe Biden and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts signed a trilateral security pact at Camp David on August 18, 2023.

China, Russia, and North Korea all voiced concern about the US attempts to militarize the Asia-Pacific through an expanding web of security agreements.

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