N. Korea says it was practicing to hit U.S. bases in Japan

Tokyo — North Korea was practicing to strike American military bases in Japan with its latest barrage of missiles, state media in Pyongyang reported Tuesday.

Leader Kim Jong Un presided over the launches, “feasting his eyes on the trails of ballistic rockets,” the report from the Korean Central News Agency said, in language that will only heighten tensions in the region.

The four ballistic missiles fired Monday morning were launched by a military unit “tasked to strike the bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in Japan,” the KCNA report said.

The United States has numerous military bases in Japan, part of its post-war security alliance with the country.

Three of the four missiles flew about 600 miles over North Korea and landed in the sea, within Japan’s exclusive economic zone off the Oga peninsula in Akita prefecture, home to a Japanese self-defense forces base. The fourth fell just outside the EEZ.

Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, said Monday that the launches “clearly show that North Korea now poses a new level of threat.”

The U.S. Strategic Command said its systems detected and tracked the projectile but “determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America.”

North Korea did not say what kind of missiles it had fired, but with a maximum height of 160 miles, analysts said they were probably medium-range Rodongs or extended-range Scuds.