North Korea attempted a new missile launch Wednesday, according to South Korean officials.
Early reports suggest the launch failed.
“South Korea and the US are aware of the missile launch and to their knowledge North Korea’s missile was not successfully launched,” South Korea’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
It comes four days after the country announced it had tested a new rocket engine, describing it as a “great leap forward” in their missile program.
US defense officials told CNN the engine could be used for a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile.
Against the background of the launch, South Korea and the United States continued their annual “Foal Eagle” military exercises, which often provoke retaliation from the North Koreans. The “Foal Eagle” exercises began on March 1 and will end on April 30.
It isn’t the North Korea’s first launch this month — the country fired four intermediate-range ballistic missiles on March 6, which fell into waters off Japan.
Three of them landed less than 200 nautical miles off the Japanese coast, antagonizing the South Korean and Japanese governments.
At the time, experts told CNN the rapid series of launches indicated North Korea was speeding up their weapons program, deploying and developing missiles faster.
“They did a launch (in February), they’re now launching more in 30 days. That’s a third of the time they used to need,” Carl Schuster, a professor at Hawaii Pacific University, told CNN at the time.
More to come.
