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Kim Jong-un was seen on Friday with his wife and a young girl during a missile test.
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North Korean state news identified the girl as Kim’s daughter.
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Kim is extremely secretive about his family, but he is believed to have three children.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un revealed his daughter to the world in new footage released Friday showing him wandering with a young girl as the rogue state tested the massive Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile.
North Korean state media KCNA said Kim attended the launch with his “beloved daughter and wife”. Like North Korea expert Ankit Panda noticed on Twitter“we’ve never seen his daughter” in public until now.
Kim, who is believed to have three children, is known to be secretive when it comes to his family. Former NBA player Dennis Rodman, who developed a relationship with the North Korean dictator, revealed in 2013 that Kim had a daughter named Kim Ju-ae. She is estimated to be about 10 years old. It’s unclear if Kim Ju-ae is the girl in the new photos from Thursday’s rocket launch.
The new footage showed Kim walking with the young girl near the large ICBM, sometimes holding her hand. Kim’s wife, Ri Sol Ju, was also featured in the photos.
Friday’s missile launch marked the second time this month that North Korea has launched an ICBM, a long-range weapon capable of firing a nuclear warhead at targets outside the country’s immediate region, and came on the heels of a series of weapons tests by North Korea. The repeated launches have raised the alarm in Japan, South Korea and the US.
“North Korea is repeating provocations with unprecedented frequency, and this is absolutely unacceptable,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters Friday after North Korea launched the missile, according to the New York Times.
US Vice President Kamala Harris also condemned the launch and called on Pyongyang to “stop further unlawful, destabilizing actions”.
The missile, which was lifted, landed in Japanese waters, and Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the missile had a range with the potential to reach the US mainland.
“The ICBM-class ballistic missile launched this time could have a range of more than 15,000 km calculated from the flight distance of this ICBM,” Hamada said in a statement, per CNN. “It depends on the weight of the warhead, but in that case the US mainland would be included in the range.”
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