Japan deploys destroyers for N. Korea satellite-bearing rocket
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Officers of the Ground Self-Defense Force (SDF) walk in front of Japan's SDF set Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile launcher at the Defence Ministry in Tokyo on Dec 6, 2012. Japan on Dec 6 dispatched three destroyers to waters over which North Korea says its satellite-bearing rocket will travel. -- PHOTO: AFP
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan on Thursday dispatched three destroyers to waters over which North Korea says its satellite-bearing rocket will travel.
Television footage showed three Aegis destroyers armed with SM-3 missile interceptors leaving their base in Sasebo, some 900 kilometres west of Tokyo.
They were reportedly bound for the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan, a stretch of water known to Koreans as the East Sea.
Separately, a naval ship carrying PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability-3) ballistic missiles arrived in the Okinawan island of Miyakojima on Thursday morning.
