By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea launched a long-range Taepodong-2 missile and two small Scud-type missiles within a two-hour period, but the long-range missile appears to have failed, a diplomatic source told Reuters on Tuesday.
CNN also reported that a Taepodong had been fired. The Taepodong 2 missile, which had been under intense scrutiny by the United States and other western powers, appeared to have failed in flight, the diplomatic source said.
A Pentagon official told Reuters North Korea appeared also to have launched at least two small Scud-type missiles, but not the intercontinental ballistic missile that has been a focus of international concern.
"This appears not to be the launch of the missile that's been so widely reported of late," said the official, who asked not to named. He referred to the small missiles as "lesser variety" Scud types.
The official spoke before reports that the third, long-range Taepodong missile firing had been reported.
Japan's NHK TV reported the first of the two smaller missiles landed in the Sea of Japan about 375 miles from Japan. A Japanese government official confirmed the launch but said it was unclear if it was a Taepodong ballistic missile.
Japan's Defense Minister reported separately that a second missile had been fired, according to NHK.
An Air Force facility protecting the nerve center of U.S. homeland defense at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, had been on heightened alert, the U.S. military said, amid persistent reports that North Korea may be set to test-fire the long-range missile.
The commander of U.S. Northern Command ordered the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, which rings the bunkered operations center, to take "necessary security precautions commensurate with its missions," said Michael Kucharek, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command. American officials have led a global chorus of concern that North Korea may soon test the Taepodong-2, believed capable of reaching Alaska.
It was the North's first missile firing in eight years.
On Monday, Pyongyang vowed to respond with an "annihilating" nuclear strike if attacked preemptively by the United States.
The heightened "force protection" level was put in place in the past two weeks, said Kucharek, adding that he could not be more specific because details of the move were classified.
Lt. Col. Marcella Adams, a spokeswoman for the Air Force Space Command, said precautions had been stepped up for the safety and security of people working in the complex. Behind 25-tonne steel doors, the Cheyenne Mountain operations center lies within a 4.5-acre (1.8-hectare) grid of excavated chambers and tunnels surrounded by 2,000 feet (610 meters) of granite.
The U.S. Northern Command, based at Paterson Air Force Base near Cheyenne Mountain along with the space command, operates interceptor missiles buried in silos, nine of them at Ft. Greeley, Alaska, and two, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Cheyenne Mountain was built in the early 1960s with a responsibility for warning of any incoming missiles. It is home to elements of the bi-national, U.S.-Canadian, North
American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.
Reuters
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04-07-2006, 22:37
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