Thousands of North Koreans celebrated their nation’s first intercontinental missile launch.
Huge crowds were pictured at a rally in Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang to celebrate the ballistic missile with a huge firework display.
The rally Thursday was held along the Taedonggang, a river that runs through the capital.
North Korea’s state media have been running daily reports hailing the launch, which was supervised by leader Kim Jong Un and timed to coincide with the Independence Day holiday in the United States.
The successful test launch of the missile, called the Hwasong 14, is a major milestone in North Korea’s long-term effort to build a missile that could carry a nuclear warhead to attack the United States.
North Korea often stages rallies in the square to mark events that it wants to underscore as particularly significant.
A similar rally was held last month on the anniversary of the beginning of the 1950-53 Korean War.
Yesterday, during a visit to Poland, US President Donald Trump warned that North Korea’s ‘very, very bad behaviour’ would be ‘confronted strongly’.
Trump said that he’s considering unspecified ‘pretty severe things’ in response to the North’s ICBM launch.
While a pre-emptive military strike may be among Trump’s potential options, analysts say it’s one of the unlikeliest because the North Korean retaliation would cause massive casualties in South Korea, particularly in Seoul, which is within easy range of North Korea’s artillery.
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