WASHINGTON >> In a direct response to North Korea’s missile launch, U.S. and South Korean soldiers fired “deep strike” precision missiles into South Korean territorial waters on Tuesday, according to U.S. military officials in Seoul.

The U.S. Eighth Army said the missile firings were a show of force meant to demonstrate U.S.-South Korean solidarity.

The U.S. asserted Tuesday that North Korea’s latest missile launch was indeed an intercontinental ballistic missile, as the North had boasted and the U.S. and South Korea had feared. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called it a “new escalation of the threat” to the U.S.