North Korea Monday celebrated the launch of what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile yet tested in a bid to bring the US mainland within reach, saying it was capable of carrying a "heavy nuclear warhead".
Leader Kim Jong-Un personally oversaw the test on Sunday, the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said, and pictures by state media showed him gazing at the missile in a hangar before the launch.
In others he gleefully clasped hands with officers and staff after the black missile -- named as the Hwasong-12 -- ascended into the sky in the dawn light, atop a column of fire.
The isolated North is under multiple sets of United Nations sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes, which have triggered global alarm.
The missile was launched on an unusually high trajectory, with KCNA saying it flew to an altitude of 2,111.5 kilometres and travelled 787 kilometres before coming down in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
That suggests a range of 4,500 kilometres (2,800 miles) or more if flown for maximum distance, analysts said.
Aside from Pyongyang's space launches, Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in the US told AFP: "This is the longest-range missile North Korea has ever tested."
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