Rodong Sinmun Monday observes in a bylined commentary in this regard:

This was a blatant challenge to the DPRK and a revelation of a criminal scenario to push the situation on the Korean Peninsula to an extreme phase and ignite a new war at any cost.

This test-fire was something unprecedented. The danger of this saber-rattling lies in that it heralded a curtain-raiser to a preemptive strike to be made by them at the north in the area close to the MDL, the commentary notes, and goes on:

During the Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military drills in August the U.S. forces staged exercises for preemptive strikes at the north.

The recent rocket test-fire conducted by the U.S. forces against this backdrop indicates that they started the action to ignite the war of aggression against the DPRK.

What merits more serious attention is that the second division of the U.S. forces in south Korea was involved in the test-fire because this division is the backbone of those forces.

It is the calculation of the U.S. warmongers to examine and round off the operation of the second division for a preempting attack on the DPRK by long-range rockets in the area and bring about a favorable phase for the provocation of the second Korean War.

It is the scenario of the U.S. imperialists to ignite the war in the eyes of the north and lead it to a large-scale three-dimensional intensive strike operation against it on the ground, in the air and seas.

This was the purpose of the rocket test-fire in the area along the MDL.

The DPRK is not a backyard of the U.S. The DPRK is quite different from those countries where its long-range rocket operations proved successful.

Nothing is more foolish than the U.S. bellicose forces' attempt to gain something by applying such "experience" to the DPRK.