Overnight Thursday and into Friday morning, North Korean fighter jets streaked toward its border with South Korea before breaking away at the last possible moments–mimicking a maneuver Chinese jets conduct toward Taiwan–while the North Korean military test-fired at least one missile off its east coast, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reports.
Starting around 10:30 p.m. Thursday (local time) and 12:20 a.m. Friday, at least ten jets took individual and group runs at the border before breaking off, coming within 12 kilometers of South Korean airspace over the Yellow Sea and 25 kilometers of the demilitarized zone in the central part of the peninsula. South Korea scrambled its air force in response, but its fighters patroled well inside its airspace.
Minutes after the last flight of fighters broke off its run for the border, North Korea fired a ballistic missile off its east coast, ABC News reports. It’s the latest in a series of test firings North Korea runs when it gets angry, prompting response tests from US and South Korea forces.