North Korea conducts intermediate-range strategic missile drill

SEOUL, Oct. 3 (Yonhap) -- The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said Saturday the country fired an intermediate-range strategic missile during a firing drill conducted earlier in the day.

"At dawn of this morning, a drill of firing a strategic weapon toward the East Sea of Korea was conducted," Kim Yo-jong said in an announcement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"An intermediate-range strategic missile was used for the drill," she said. Leader Kim Jong-un oversaw the drill by a firepower sub-unit, according to the KCNA.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff earlier detected North Korea firing a ballistic missile toward the East Sea early Saturday morning from the Wonsan area and it flew over 700 kilometers.

Kim claimed that the superiority of the special flight mode applied to the country's missiles has been verified in practice, while the flight distance measured "the enemy" showed "the limitations" of their tracking capability.

"Whenever we applied the wave-like trajectory mode to missiles, the enemy failed to track the targets from their first skip points," she said, adding, "They should acknowledge the speed of the missile."

Kim also said that missile is capable of changing its flight orbit at a low altitude and artificial intelligence was introduced into it. "In other words, this means that there is no way to avoid this attack."

The Missile Administration also reported the North Korean leader that the missile is possible to set at least four flight orbit modes according to a purpose and target, while the leader expressed the belief that any country in the world could not have access to such technology for at least several years.