North Korea today conducted test-launches of four short-range missiles, the latest in a series of recent provocations that included the nation's second underground nuclear blast, news agencies reported (see GSN, July 1).
(Jul. 2) -
Replicas of North Korea's Scud-B missile displayed at a museum in Seoul last year. North Korea fired four short-range missiles today and might launch Scud-B missiles and other weapons in upcoming tests (Jung Yeon-je/Getty Images).
Two ground-to-ship weapons were fired from an east coast launch site between 5:20 p.m. and 6 p.m., with a third missile taking off from that coast about two hours later, Reuters reported. That was followed by a fourth launch (Kim/Kim, Reuters, July 2).
A South Korean military source told the Yonhap News Agency that all four weapons were KN-O1 missiles, which can fly up to 100 miles. Each went about 60 miles before dropping into the East Sea (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press/Washington Post, July 2).
The launches all originated from a base near the city of Wonsan and were completed by 9:20 p.m., Agence France-Presse reported.
They might be followed by additional missile tests in coming days.
Among the weapons that are set for launch are the Scud-B, which can fly more than 200 miles, and the Rodong missile, which has a range of more than 800 miles but might be restricted to roughly 250 miles in this instance, according to the South Korean JoongAng Ilbo newspaper.
Tensions with Pyongyang have been high since the regime in April launched what it said was a satellite-topped rocket. International condemnation of the event -- seen in many sectors as a test of long-range missile technology -- led the North to pull out of denuclearization talks and threaten to resume operations at its plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear complex. The state on May 25 then tested another nuclear device and fired several short-range missiles, prompting the U.N. Security Council to issue another sanctions resolution.
Today's launches came as U.S. officials were in China in hopes of persuading leaders in Beijing to aggressively enact the latest penalties against North Korea. China, meanwhile, hopes to persuade its neighbor to return to the nuclear negotiations.
The recent actions could be North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's attempt to display authority as he prepares to hand power over to his youngest son, observers say.
"We have repeatedly warned that such a provocative act is not beneficial for North Korea's national interest," said Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, July 2).
"We had expected that they will fire short-range missiles at any time," South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told AP. "It's not a good sign because they are demonstrating their military power."
There is no indication that North Korea is preparing to soon carry out its reported plan to launch an ICBM that could hit U.S. territory, according to the South Korean television network YTN (Chang, Associated Press).
Two U.S. scientists said that North Korea could hit much of the United States with a modified version of the rocket launched in April.
"North Korea has conducted two nuclear tests, but it isn't thought to have designed a nuclear warhead that could be delivered by a missile. Such a first-generation plutonium warhead could have a mass of 1,000 kilograms or more," according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Theodore Postol and physicist David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"If the Unha-2 was designed to launch a relatively lightweight satellite, its structure may not allow it to carry a 1,000-kilogram warhead. If it could, we estimate that it could have a range of 10,000-10,500 kilometers, allowing it to reach Alaska, Hawaii, and roughly half of the lower 48 states. If a 1,000-kilogram payload were instead launched by the first two stages of this missile, it would have a range of 7,000-7,500 kilometers. This would allow it to reach Alaska and parts of Hawaii, but not the lower 48 states," they stated in a recent Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article (Postol/Wright, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 29).
The head of U.S. Northern Command this week asserted the ability of the nation's missile defenses to bring down a long-range North Korean missile.
"The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defense capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, I'm very comfortable, give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM that I've got high confidence that I could interdict that flight before it caused huge damage to any U.S. territory," Air Force Gen. Victor Renuart told the Washington Times. (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, July 2).