May 28 (UPI) — North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile early Monday, United States and South Korea military officials said, the communist nation’s ninth missile test this year and second in the past week.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said what appeared to be a new Scud missile flew 280 miles. It was tracked for six minutes, U.S. Pacific Command said, until it landed in the Sea of Japan.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the missile fell into Japan’s exclusive economic zone in the sea.
President Donald Trump was briefied on North Korea’s latest missile launch, a National Security Council official said, according to White House pool reports.
Trump has said he would consider military action against North Korea.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation that a war with North Korea would be “catastrophic … probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.”
South Korea’s Yonhap News agency was first to report the launch, which followed North Korea’s test last Sunday of a medium-range ballistic missile using a road-mobile launcher.
The Pentagon said Wednesday it plans to deter North Korean threats by deploying eight additional ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska.
On Friday, the Pentagon said it also will try to shoot down an intercontinental-range missile for the first time in a simulation of a North Korean ICBM aimed at the U.S.
