US Detects, Tracks North Korea’s Possible Missile Launch

North Korean missile, launched from submarine, did not pose any threat to North America, according to the US Strategic Command.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US military have detected the possible missile launch from the North Korean submarine, the US Strategic Command said Saturday.

Earlier in the day, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said as quoted by local media that the North fired a ballistic missile from a submarine off the country's east coast.

"US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) systems detected and tracked what we assess was a North Korean submarine missile launch from the Sea of Japan at 4:29 a.m. CDT [09:29 GMT]," one of the US Defense Department’s commands said in a press release.

According to North American Aerospace Defense Command, the North Korean missile did not pose any threat to North America, it added.

"The men and women of USSTRATCOM, NORAD and US Northern Command, and US Pacific Command remain vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and are fully committed to working closely with our Republic of Korea and Japanese allies to maintain security," the press release stressed.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula escalated after North Korea successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test in early January and put a satellite into orbit a month later, violating UN Security Council resolutions and triggering condemnation from the international community.

On April 14, Yonhap reported citing government and military sources that North Korea had allegedly deployed one or two Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles (also known as Rodong-B or BM-25) on its eastern coast. The following day, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the North appeared to have tried a missile launch, which ended in a failure.