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North Korea Confirms September 12 Missile Launch Was Joint Firepower Drill

The exercise came a day after trilateral Freedom Edge drills ended and as U.S. President Donald Trump continues to seek a new summit with Kim Jong Un.

This composite image, released by North Korean state media, shows the joint firepower attack drill held on Sep. 12, 2026.

North Korea’s state media confirmed Monday that a joint firepower drill by artillery and missile units across the Korean People’s Army took place on September 12, matching the timing of a ballistic missile launch that the South Korean military had detected the same day.

On September 12, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected multiple short-range ballistic missiles launched from the Wonsan area on North Korea’s east coast at around 5:20 a.m. KST Saturday. The missiles flew about 250 kilometers before landing in the ocean to the east of North Korea. The JCS added that its forces were closely monitoring North Korea’s activity under a firm South Korea-U.S. combined defense posture.

Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), one of the North’s state-controlled media, reported on September 14, two days later, that the launch stemmed from a joint firepower attack drill involving subunits from five artillery and missile joint units. The drill incorporated attack drones, a tactical cruise missile, a large-caliber thermal-pressure multiple rocket launcher, and a tactical ballistic missile, the KCNA said.

“It is one of the training tasks prioritized by the army to get familiar with the procedure for the operation of the integrated firepower control system, the systematic component of the strategic weapons combined management system, improve the specialty of the integrated automatic firepower control of various combat systems and increase the efficiency of destroying the targets with concentrated fire,” Director of the Artillery Bureau Yu Chang Son was quoted as saying in the KCNA report.  

The launch came a day after South Korea, the United States, and Japan wrapped up Freedom Edge, a five-day trilateral exercise held from September 7 to September 11 to strengthen air, maritime, and cyber coordination against North Korean nuclear and missile threats. North Korea has previously cast both trilateral and South Korea-U.S. drills as provocations. The September 12 drill fits a pattern in which Pyongyang has answered major allied exercises with missile launches almost immediately after they conclude.

The missile test also came as U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed for a new summit with North Korean........

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