2nd LD Writethru: DPRK fires 7 missiles

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired seven surface-to-air missiles into its eastern waters on Thursday, South Korea's Defense Ministry said Friday.

A Defense Ministry official said via phone that the DPRK conducted the missile-firing exercises Thursday evening observed by top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un.

The seven surface-to-air missiles were launched from Seonduk in South Hamkyung Province between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Thursday into its eastern waters. Seonduk is located in the DPRK's east coast.

Those missiles were estimated to be SA-2 with a maximum range of 47 km, SA-3 with a 13-35 km range and SA-5 with a range of about 260 km. This is the first time that the DPRK test-fired SA-5 missiles.

The DPRK's missile firings came coincided with the ongoing U.S.- South Korea annual war games, code-named Key Resolve and Foal Eagle that kicked off on March 2.

The DPRK fired two short-range ballistic missiles into its eastern waters on the day when the joint annual military exercises began. Pyongyang denounced the drills as a rehearsal for northward invasion, while Seoul says those are annually-held exercises defensive in nature.

The Thursday launch came a day before the Key Resolve command post exercise ends on Friday.

The Foal Eagle field training exercise will run until April 24. Those drills mobilized more than 200,000 South Korean troops and 10,000 U.S. forces.

The DPRK test-fired missiles five times this year. On Feb. 8, Pyongyang launched five short-range projectiles with a range of about 200 km, after firing four ship-to-ship missiles on Feb. 6. The DPRK fired off missiles with a range of 83 km to 95 km on Feb. 20. Endi