North Korea Tests Four Missiles That Land Near Japan, Targeting US Forces

Those who have visited South Korea have described a wonderful country — prosperous, with a friendly culture, one that’s a joy to visit. But look about 20 miles north of the South Korean capital and you find hell on earth, or at least what might be a close approximation of it. North Korea is a totalitarian state of the Stalinist model, led by the tyrannical grandson of the North’s founder who is the nation’s dictator. As a closed society, much of what we learn comes from declassified government reports as well as defectors who have managed to escape the place.

North Korea may have millions of starving citizens, but at least it has a nuclear weapons program — or so its leader Kim Jong-un must think. This young leader enjoys making provocative comments and launching missiles into the ocean near Japan. Lately, he has displayed his recklessness by doing all of these things as well as making demands of President Trump. Shooting off his mouth like that might stroke his ego, but it’s also likely to get him something he likes far less.

North Korea fired four banned ballistic missiles that flew 620 miles into the ocean off its eastern coast, South Korean officials said Monday, in an apparent reaction to huge military drills by Washington and Seoul that Pyongyang insists are an invasion rehearsal.

It was not immediately clear the exact type of missile fired; Pyongyang has staged a series of missile test-launches of various ranges in recent months, including a new intermediate-range missile in February. The ramped-up tests come as leader Kim Jong Un pushes for a nuclear and missile program that can deter what he calls U.S. and South Korean hostility toward the North.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday’s firing shows that North Korea has become “a new kind of threat.” Japanese officials said three of the four missiles landed in the 200-nautical-mile offshore area where Tokyo has sovereign rights for exploring and exploiting resources.

RT filed the following report indicating that the purpose of the North Korean missile tests were to prepare to target US bases in Japan.

Pyongyang says the missiles it fired toward Japan were part of an exercise targeting US military bases there. It comes as the White House said the deployment of the advanced THAAD anti-missile defense system to South Korea will guard it against the North.

The test launches of four missiles, fired by North Korea into the Sea of Japan on Monday morning, were a drill carried out by an army unit commissioned with attacking US military bases in Japan, the country’s official news agency KCNA said Tuesday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un personally supervised the drill, it said.

“Involved in the drill were Hwasong artillery units of the KPA Strategic Force tasked to strike the bases of the US imperialist aggressor forces in Japan in contingency,” KCNA said. “In the hearts of artillerymen … there was burning desire to mercilessly retaliate against the warmongers going ahead with their joint war exercises.”

The launch was preceded by threats of retaliation to the US-South Korea military drills. Pyongyang views the exercises as a preparation of an attack on North Korea.

The US president also reportedly asked Japanese people to “trust him as well as the United States 100 percent.”

In the event the North Korean dictator makes good on his threats, the US is moving anti-missile batteries to the South.

Meanwhile, the White House said Monday that a THAAD missile defense system will be stationed in South Korea to counter threats from the North.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer described the Monday morning launches as consistent with Pyongyang’s history of “provocative behavior.”

“The Trump administration is taking steps to enhance our ability to defend against North Korea’s ballistic missiles, such as through the deployment of a THAAD battery to South Korea,” Spicer told reporters at a press briefing Monday.

The US has started the deployment of THAAD to South Korea, US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris said in the statement on Tuesday.

North Korea is playing with fire. While their enormous military could do serious damage in a shooting war, Mr. Kim might find himself, if still alive after the shooting stopped, with not much country left to rule.

North Korea conducted 24 missile tests and two nuclear tests last year. There have been widespread worries that the North will conduct an ICBM test that, when perfected, could in theory reach U.S. shores. Washington would consider such a capability a major threat.

Part of the problem is the unpredictability of the maniac who leads North Korea. One might also wonder whether his generals, many of whom are twice his age, would actually follow an order to launch a nuclear attack, an act that would no doubt mean the entire obliteration of their nation.

Let’s hope we do not have to find out.

Source: Fox News

Source: RT

Photo: India Today