Seoul, Jan 14 : North Korea on Friday launched two suspected ballistic missiles, local media reports said.

The missile was fired eastward and was the third saber-rattling show by Kim Jong-un’s regime this year.

South Korea’s Joint Chief of Staff (JCS) said the short-range projectiles were fired from Uiju in North Pyongan Province, bordering China.

Yonhap News agency, citing the officials, reported that the speed of the missiles were six times the speed of sound.

The JCS said, the intelligence officials of South Korea and US are carrying out a detailed analysis for more information.

“At this point, it seems the North fired the missiles toward pre-set targets so as to verify the missiles’ accuracy,” a JCS official said on condition of anonymity.

“It is presumed to be a set of test launches aimed at enhancing the accuracy of the existing short-range ballistic missiles,” he added.

The targets in point are thought to have been set on Al Island, an uninhabited island off the North’s east coast, sources said.

Earlier in the day, the North had issued warning as the US put sanctions on six North Koreans who were involved in the regime’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes on Wednesday.

“If the US adopts such a confrontational stance, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will be forced to take stronger and certain reaction to it,” a spokesperson of the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The US Indo-Pacific Command said it is aware of the launches, but assessed they do not pose an immediate threat to US personnel or territory or to our allies, the South Korean news agency reported.

“The missile launch highlights the destabilising impact of the DPRK’s illicit weapons program,” it said in a press release.

The US commitment to the defence of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad.”