US joins bomb drills after N Korea’s missile launch

America and South Korea put on military show of strength after Pyongyang fires weapon over Japan

‘The chances of being hit by the missile were tiny, so I just went to work’

AMERICAN and South Korean fighter jets conducted precision bombing drills yesterday in a sharp rebuke to North Korea after it fired a ballistic missile over Japan.

Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister, called Pyongyang’s test launch “outrageous” and “barbaric”, with residents in the north of the country sent scrambling for cover after the rarely used J-alert warning system was triggered. The US national security council called it “dangerous and reckless”.

Analysts have suggested North Korea may have fired a nuclear-capable Hwasong-12 intermediate ballistic missile (IBM), which has a range capable of reaching the United States territory of Guam and its military bases.

Yesterday’s test was launched from the northern Chagang province at 7.22am and flew for 2,858 miles before crashing into the Pacific Ocean – the longest distance ever travelled by a North Korean weapon.

Pyongyang previously fired an IBM over Japan in 2017 but it did not travel as far. This test launch was the fifth by North Korea in the past week and its 37th this year.

In response, South Korea and the United States yesterday released a video of a precision bombing exercise designed to demonstrate their “capabilities to conduct a precision strike at the origin of provocations”, according to Seoul’s joint chiefs of staff.

“With the participation of four South Korean air force F-15KS and four US air force F-16 fighters, South Korea’s F-15K fired two joint direct attack munition (JDAM) bombs against a virtual target at the Jikdo shooting field in the West Sea,” the statement added, referring to the Yellow Sea.

South Korea echoed Japan’s anger at the latest launch, with Yoon Suk-yeol, its president, warning of a “resolute” response and convening an emergency meeting of the national security council. The Japanese ministry of defence said eight Japanese F-15 and F-2 aircraft and four US F-35 aircraft also conducted training exercises in response in airspace west of Kyushu, Japan’s third largest island and the closest to the Korean peninsula.

In northern Japan, train operators temporarily halted services and the government issued warnings to both civilian aircraft operating in the region and ships off the north-east coast.

The launch also prompted a rare activation of Japan’s early warning J-alert system, which urged citizens to seek shelter, although few actually did. In the provinces of Aomori and Hokkaido, text messages and television broadcasts were used to tell residents to seek cover in sturdy buildings or underground. “The J-alert came on the television and by mobile phone just as I was getting ready to leave the house to go to work,” Hideo Okada, a property executive who lives in southern Hokkaido, told The Daily Telegraph.

“It made me jump, but then I saw that it was a missile and I thought to myself ‘the North Koreans are crazy’,” he said. “I just carried on as normal. There was nothing I could do and the chances of being hit by the missile were tiny, so I just went to work.”

Joe Biden, the US president, reiterated Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to Japan’s defence during a phone call with Mr Kishida yesterday, the White House said in a statement.

The two leaders condemned the missile test and confirmed they would work closely with South Korea and the international community to coordinate an immediate and longer-term response, the White House added.