North Korea fires short-range missiles

Seoul : North Korea fired three short-range ballistic missiles Saturday, the US military said, reviving tensions with Washington after President Donald Trump had said the reclusive nation's leader Kim Jong Un was starting to show some "respect".

The launches come as tens of thousands of South Korean and US troops take part in joint military drills in the south of the peninsula, which Pyongyang views as highly provocative.

Two of the missiles failed in flight and the third blew up "almost immediately", with none of the weapons posing a threat to either North America or the US territory of Guam, said a spokesman for US Pacific Command. 

Lee Il-Woo, an analyst at Korea Defence Network, said the launch represented a "low-level provocative act" carried out in response to the US-South Korea exercises, which are seen by Pyongyang as a rehearsal for an invasion of its own territory.

The joint exercises started Monday at a time of heightened tensions between Pyongyang and Washington, after two successful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches carried out by North Korea last month apparently brought most of the United States into range for the first time. 

The reported failure of the latest, short-range missiles suggested Pyongyang may have been trialling new technology, or using up old weaponry, Lee said.

"The North might have been testing new multiple rocket launchers, or short-range ballistic missiles or firing off decaying age-old ballistic missiles stored in a missile base near the eastern coast, where the projectiles were fired," he said.

"It tends to fire untested missiles or rockets from the coast toward the sea to avoid possible fallouts."

The launches, which took place over a span of 30 minutes, came as North Korean state media reported that leader Kim Jong-Un oversaw a military exercise simulating a special forces assault on South Korean border islands involving aircraft, "multiple-missile launchers" and howitzers. 

Shells hit islands standing in for South Korea's Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong islands while special forces landed in rubber boats or parachuted in and "wiped out the desperate enemy with various combat methods," the Korean Central News Agency said.

The North bombarded Yeonpyeong island in November 2010 in response to a South Korean live-fire drill near the tense sea border, killing four South Koreans -- two soldiers and two civilians -- and prompting Seoul to return the fire.

"Kim Jong-Un expressed great satisfaction over the successful target-striking contest," it said.