SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters Monday morning, its neighbors said, days after the end of the South Korean-US military drills that the North views as an invasion rehearsal.

The launches — North Korea's first known missile testing activities in about a month — came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Seoul for a conference. Outside experts earlier predicted North Korea would extend its run of missile tests and intensify its warlike rhetoric ahead of the US presidential election in November to boost its leverage in future diplomacy.