Kim and daughter oversee North Korea’s ICBM launch

SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, accompanied by his daughter, personally oversaw the recent test-firing of the country´s most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile, state media images showed on Friday.

The launch on Thursday -- Pyongyang´s second ICBM test this year -- involved a Hwasong-17 missile, the official Korean Central News Agency reported, adding that it was fired in response to “frantic” US-South Korea joint military drills.

Photographs in the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Kim watching the black-and-white Hwasong-17 -- dubbed a “monster missile” by analysts -- blast off into the sky. Some of the images showed him watching the launch with his daughter -- never named by state media but identified as his second child Ju Ae by South Korean intelligence.