North Korea Calls Sept 12 Launches Live-Fire Drill — SkimNews
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- KCNA reported on Sept 14 that the Sept 12 launches were a "joint firepower attack drill" involving five army units, testing attack drones, tactical cruise missiles, tactical ballistic missiles, and large-calibre multiple rocket launchers.
- South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired several short-range ballistic missiles flying about 250km toward the sea off its east coast on Sept 12.
- The North Korean drill came one day after South Korea, the US, and Japan wrapped up the five-day trilateral Freedom Edge exercise focused on countering North Korean threats.
- The launch is believed to be the 13th known ballistic missile launch event in 2026, with North Korean state media having remained silent on several previous tests reported by South Korea.
- Lim Eul-chul of Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies said the drill demonstrated an "integrated strike network" aimed at saturating South Korean and US missile defenses through simultaneous attacks by weapons with different flight characteristics.
- The absence of leader Kim Jong Un and the two-day reporting delay suggested Pyongyang sought to present the event as a "technical and practical military exercise" while calibrating tensions, according to Lim.
Why it matters: The drill shows North Korea coordinating drones, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and rocket artillery through a unified command system — a capability the source notes is designed to overwhelm South Korean and US missile defenses. Coming one day after the Freedom Edge exercise wrapped, the 13th known 2026 ballistic missile event reinforces that Pyongyang is now demonstrating integrated multi-weapon saturation strikes rather than single-system tests.
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