By Joyce Lee
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has fired several cruise missiles toward the sea west of the Korean peninsula, the South Korean military said on Saturday.
This would be North Korea’s latest missile launch since it fired two ballistic missiles on Wednesday as Pyongyang and Washington ramp up demonstrations of military violence in a standoff over the isolated country’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff say a number of cruise missiles have been detected launched since 4 a.m. local time Saturday morning (7 p.m. Friday GMT).
North Korea fired missiles on Wednesday hours after a US nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) surfaced for a rare visit to South Korea.
North Korea also warned on Thursday that deploying US aircraft carriers, bombers or missile submarines to South Korea could meet criteria for the use of nuclear weapons.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; editing by Diane Craft and Grant McCool)
