North Korea fires multiple short-range ballistic missiles

North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters Monday morning, its neighbours said, days after the end of the South Korean-U.S. military drills that the North views as an invasion rehearsal.

North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters Monday morning, its neighbours said, days after the end of the South Korean-U.S. military drills that the North views as an invasion rehearsal.

The launches were North Korea's first known missile testing activities in about a month. Outside experts earlier predicted North Korea would continue its run of missile tests and intensify its warlike rhetoric ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November to boost its leverage in future diplomacy.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a parliamentary session that North Korea fired "a number of" ballistic missiles into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. He said the missiles fell outside of Japan's exclusive economic zone and no damage or injuries has been reported.

Japan's Defense Ministry said North Korea fired three missiles, two together at 7:44 a.m. and the other about 37 minutes later. They all travelled a distance of 350 kilometres (about 220 miles) at the maximum speed of 50 kilometres (about 30 miles) per hour.

Kishida denounced North Korea's repeated ballistic missile tests as acts "that threaten the peace and safety of Japan, the region and the international society." He said Japan strongly protested against North Korea over its testing activities, saying they violated UN Security Council resolutions that ban the North from engaging in any ballistic activities.

South Korea's military said it also detected "several" suspected short-range ballistic launches by North Korea on Monday morning. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South Korean military bolstered its surveillance posture and is closely coordinating with the United States and Japan.

During the South Korea-U.S. military drills that ended Thursday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guided a series of military training exercises involving tanks, artillery guns and paratroopers. The 11-day South Korean-U.S. drills involved a computer-simulated command post training and 48 kinds of field exercises, twice the number conducted last year.