Batbricks7

North Korea test-launched a new ballistic missile on Thursday (Oct 31), flexing its military muscle.

The country's state-run television aired video footage of the test of a huge new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed Hwasong-19.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) lauded it as "the world's strongest strategic missile."

The missile flew higher than any previous North Korean missile, according to the North, as well as militaries in South Korea and Japan, which tracked its flight deep into space before it splashed down in the ocean between Japan and Russia.

In the video, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter were seen watching the missile launch.

While questions remain over North Korea's ability to guide such a missile and protect a nuclear warhead as it re-enters the atmosphere, the Hwasong-19, like North Korea's other latest ICBMs, demonstrated the range to strike nearly anywhere in the United States.

"The new-type ICBM proved before the world the hegemonic position we have secured in the development and manufacture of nuclear delivery," KCNA quoted Kim as saying,

A 'perfected weapon system'
Developing advanced solid-fuel missiles, which are quicker to launch and harder to detect and destroy, has long been a goal for Kim.

The test proved that North Korea's "development and manufacture of nuclear delivery means is absolutely irreversible", according to KCNA.

The missile is now a "perfected weapon system", the agency said, with Kim describing the launch as an "appropriate military action" to send a message to the country's rivals.

North Korea "would never change its line of bolstering up its nuclear forces," it said.