North Korea fired a suspected long-range ballistic missile towards the sea off its east coast on Thursday (October 31), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, a day after Seoul reported the North was making preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The launch, at a sharply raised angle, was from an area near the North’s capital, Pyongyang, at 7:10 a.m. (2210 GMT, October 30) and may have used a newly developed solid-fuel booster, South Korea’s military added.

The last ICBM tested in December last year, dubbed the Hwasong-18, fuelled by solid-propellant and fired from a road launcher, was also launched at a sharply raised angle and gave a flight time that could translate to a potential range of 15,000 km (9,300 miles) on a normal trajectory. That is a distance that puts anywhere in the mainland United States within range.

The launch followed a storm of international condemnation over what the U.S. and others say is North Korea’s deployment of 11,000 troops to Russia and 3,000 of them close to the western frontlines with Ukraine.

(Reuters)