A series of photographs published by the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Kim watching the missiles rise into the air and another of him smiling gleefully, clapping with other officials.

The Korean version of the KCNA report said the North’s missile launch demonstrated its readiness to “wipe out” enemy forces with a “merciless nuclear strike”.

The military units involved are “tasked to strike the bases of the US imperialist aggressor forces in Japan in contingency”, KCNA said.

“The four ballistic rockets launched simultaneously are so accurate that they look like acrobatic flying corps in formation, he said,” the agency added, referring to Kim.

“Feasting his eyes on the trails of ballistic rockets”, he praised the Hwasong artillery unit that carried it out, it said.

Kim Jong-Un gave the order for the drill to start, the North’s official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

North Korea said their missile launches were training for a strike on U.S. bases in Japan on Tuesday.

On Sunday, North Korea launched four banned ballistic missiles that landed in the East Sea and landed 200 nautical miles from Japan’s coastline .

President Donald J. Trump spoke to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Acting President Hwang Kyo-Ahn of South Korea via telephone following the missile launch. The allies confirmed that the launches violated U.N. Security Council resolutions and presented a “clear challenge to the region and international community,” Abe told reporters in Tokyo.

The leaders agreed that “the threat has entered a new stage,” Abe said.

Abe said that “President Trump said the United States is 100 percent with Japan and he told me to convey his remarks to the Japanese people.” The POTUS is said to have reaffirmed Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to Japan and South Korea.

The White House issued a statement that said that there would be “very dire consequences” for North Korea’s “provocative and threatening actions.”

“It should be very clear to the DPRK that it is a pariah, it is an outlier, it is in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, and that the countries represented in this room are not going to stand by and just let the DPRK violate international law,” said U.S. Disarmament Ambassador Robert Wood.

Since the missile launch, more than 20 countries, including North Korea’s main ally China, as well as Britain, France, and Russia, have condemned North Korea’s provocations.

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Intelligence officials believe that North Korea could be less than two years away from developing a nuclear warhead that could reach the continental United States.

In January, President Trump commented on Pyongyang’s chances of having an intercontinental ballistic nuclear weapon and declared that “it won’t happen!”