File photo provided by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in Pyongyang, DPRK, Nov. 4, 2018. (Xinhua/KCNA)
WASHINGTON, April 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Department of Defense said on Thursday that the weapon system tested by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday was not a ballistic missile.
"The test or the launch, depending on how you want to characterize it, was not a ballistic missile," U.S. Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said to the press on Thursday.
When asked also on Thursday about the tested DPRK weapon, Pentagon spokesperson Charles Summers Jr. refused to reveal details of the test for intelligence reasons, while he confirmed that the tactical-level weapons test posed no threat to the United States and regional allies.
The spokesperson also emphasized that U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Strategic Command have been at normal operations for the last 24 hours.
The DPRK's state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Thursday that Kim Jong Un, top leader of the DPRK, supervised the test-firing of a new tactical guided weapon on Wednesday.
The design indexes of the weapon, with advantages of "the peculiar mode of guiding flight and the load of a powerful warhead," were "perfectly verified at the test-fire conducted in various modes of firing at different targets," the report said, giving no details of the weapon.
