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U.S. Interceptor downs missile in test over Pacific
Live target launched from Alaska hit by device fired from California


The U.S. military shot down a target ballistic missile over the Pacific on Friday in the widest test of its emerging antimissile shield in 18 months, the Defense Department announced.

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said it had successfully completed an important exercise involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack.

The test results will help improve the performance of a multibillion-dollar shield against the type of long-range ballistic missile that could be used to attack a U.S. city with a weapon of mass destruction, the agency said in a statement.

Officially, the $85 million test was designed to collect data rather than shoot down the target.

It was the first involving a live target since interceptor rockets failed to leave their silos during tests in December 2004 and February 2005.

It was also the first since the ground-based system, which is part of a layered shield that includes naval and aerial components, was activated to guard against ballistic missiles test-fired on July 4 and 5 by North Korea.

Boeing Co. is prime contractor for the ground-based mid-course defense. Major subcontractors include Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp. and Raytheon Co..

In the exercise, a target missile was launched from Kodiak, Alaska. And for the first time, the ground-based interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California. Previous launches have been from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

North Korea condemns U.S. test 
Says successful defensive measure 'aimed at attacking us and intercepting our missiles'


North Korea Saturday called a U.S. missile defense test a threat and vowed to strengthen its defense measures in response.

North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland released a statement saying the U.S. test, which was conducted Friday over the Pacific Ocean, "was aimed at attacking us and intercepting our missiles," the BBC reported Saturday.

The committee also called the United States the "the main culprit" in the threat of war on the Korean peninsula.

"It is a folly that the United States wields the truncheons of power in order to scare someone into submission ... This only leads the army and the people to firm up their determination to build up our self-defensive military deterrence," the statement said.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency earlier announced an interceptor had successfully halted a target fired from Alaska.

"What we did today is a huge step in terms of our systematic approach to continuing to field, continuing to deploy and continuing to develop a missile defence system for the US, for our allies, our friends, our deployed forces around the world," said Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, director of the MDA.