North Korea fired several ballistic missiles toward the sea off its east coast on Monday morning, South Korea's military said, in the latest in a series of weapons tests that have raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the missiles were launched from the Pyongyang area at around 09:20 local time (00:20 GMT) and flew toward the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan. One of the missiles travelled more than 900 kilometres (559 miles), the JCS said, without specifying how many were detected.
"Our military has stepped up surveillance and vigilance against possible additional launches," the Joint Chiefs said in a statement.
Japan and Seoul react
Japan's coastguard said it had detected two unidentified projectiles believed to be ballistic missiles that appeared to have already fallen. Japan's defence ministry separately confirmed the launch of at least one suspected ballistic missile.
South Korea's presidential office said Pyongyang's repeated launches violate United Nations Security Council resolutions and urged an immediate halt.
Seoul calls it a 'show of force'
JCS spokesperson Jang Do-young said the launch appeared to be a show of force following South Korea's own hypersonic missile test-fire, and an intentional demonstration of North Korean missile capabilities.
Last week, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung oversaw the country's first test-firing of a domestically produced hypersonic weapon, a rare public display of a missile test by a South Korean president. His office said the weapon, once fully developed, would give Seoul a new deterrence capability able to strike key targets within the peninsula's operational environment.
On October 3, North Korea said it had tested a hypersonic intermediate-range missile designed to evade missile defences in South Korea and Japan. Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said that launch featured a missile capable of changing its flight path at low altitude and that artificial intelligence had been introduced into it.
Tensions over DMZ landmine blast
Monday's launch is the fourth by North Korea in October, according to DW, and comes amid heightened friction over a landmine explosion along the heavily fortified border.
Three South Korean soldiers were wounded on September 21 when two landmines detonated in the Seoul-controlled area of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that divides the two Koreas. A joint South Korean and United Nations investigation concluded that North Korean forces had planted the mines about a year earlier, a finding Pyongyang has angrily denied.
Seoul has since demanded an apology, which Kim Yo Jong dismissed as a "despicable" demand while rejecting a planned transfer of medical equipment from the South. The two Koreas remain technically at war, as the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce rather than a peace treaty.