North Korea launched another seven missiles on Saturday, continuing a blitz that began two days earlier with the firing of four short-range weapons, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 3).
(Jul. 6) -
A pedestrian in Seoul passes a television on Saturday displaying news of North Korea's recent missile launches. Pyongyang fired another seven missiles on Saturday (Park Ji-hwan/Getty Images).
The launches involved ballistic missiles that flew about 250 miles from an east coast launch site, according to a South Korean Defense Ministry official.
A newspaper report Monday indicated that launches consisted of four Scud missiles and three medium-range Rodong missiles.
Pyongyang fired two of its older Scud-C missiles, liquid-fueled weapons that can fly 310 miles, and two new Scud-ER weapons that can fly up to 620 miles and have greater accuracy than their predecessors. The Rodong has a range of 810 missiles (Hyung-Jin Kim, Associated Press I/Washington Post, July 6).
"The missiles were seen as part of military exercises, but North Korea also appeared to have sent a message to the U.S. through the missile launches," which occurred on the U.S. Independence Day, said a high-level official in the South Korean president's office.
Additional launches are possible in the next few days, but Pyongyang does not appear prepared to conduct another ICBM test, the official said. A military source, though, told the Yonhap News Agency that personnel were leaving the missile launch installation and that the North had lifted the ban on ships' use of nearby waters, suggesting that no further launches were imminent.
The U.N. Security Council has demanded that North Korea refrain from launching Scuds, medium-range missiles or long-range weapons, most recently in a resolution passed in the wake of the regime's May 25 nuclear test. Saturday's launches violated that ban, though the firing of what were believed to be ground-to-ship cruise missiles on Thursday did not, according to the South Korean Foreign Ministry.
The recent launches are "a demonstration of their defiance and rejection of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 ... and to demonstrate their military power capabilities to any potential adversaries," said Daniel Pinkston, an analyst with the International Crisis Group (Kwang Tae-Kim, Associated Press II/Globe and Mail, July 4).
The U.N. Security Council was scheduled today to consider the launches, North Korea's largest missile firing since 2006, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, July 6).
The launches indicated that North Korea has improved the accuracy of its missiles, China Daily reported today.
"Five of the seven missiles fell near the same spot in the East Sea (Sea of Japan)," a South Korean official told Yonhap.
The North is believed to hold more than 300 Rodong missiles and in excess of 600 Scud-type weapons, Reuters reported (Zhang Haizhou, China Daily, July 6).
"If you look at their most recent efforts, the most worrying thing is not their current capacity in terms of distance or scope but how they have improved," said Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith. "We have seen improvements regrettably in their technology and their approach" (Kelly Olsen, Associated Press III/Yahoo!News, July 5).
The Scud-ER could reach sections of Japan, AP reported.
"What's important is their chemical weapons," said South Korean analyst Kim Jin-moo. "If they (Scud missiles) are tipped with chemical weapons, those become a big threat."
U.S. Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, said the launches "were very unhelpful and clearly counter to the desires of the international community for a peaceful and stable region" (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press IV/Washington Post, July 6).
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura characterized the firings as a "serious act of provocation against the security of neighboring countries" and a violation of U.N. Security Council mandates, the Asahi Shimbun reported (Asahi Shimbun, July 6).
It will be a number of weeks before it can be known whether the launches indicate that North Korea has moved closer to being able to place nuclear warheads on its missiles, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Pyongyang has tested two nuclear weapons but is not yet believed to be capable of manufacturing a warhead that could fit on a missile (Evan Ramstad, Wall Street Journal, July 6).
The regime is years from possessing such a capability, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
The capabilities of North Korea's long-range missiles also remain in doubt, the newspaper reported Thursday. The regime has yet to run a seamless test of its Taepodong ICBMs.
A Taepodong 2 launched on July 4, 2006, failed in less than one minute. A rocket fired in April of this year -- in what Pyongyang said was a successful attempt to place a communications satellite into orbit -- flew nearly 2,000 miles, but its third stage apparently failed to disconnect from the second stage before splashing into the Pacific Ocean.
This indicates that the North could still not threaten Hawaii or the mainland United States (Peter Grier, Christian Science Monitor,July 2).
The cost this year for North Korea's missile and nuclear tests has hit $700 million, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, July 6).
Meanwhile, a North Korean cargo ship believed to be carrying weapons in violation of the latest U.N. Security Council resolution appears to be headed home, Reuters reported.
The June 12 action banned the regime from importing or exporting any armaments. However, the Kang Nam 1, which has been involved in the North's missile trade, was suspected of heading to Myanmar with small arms.
The ship, which was being tracked by the U.S. Navy, turned around and was set to arrive today at the port of Nampo (Jack Kim, Reuters/Washington Post, July 6).
The cause for Pyongyang's reversal remains unexplained, the New York Times reported. U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden said yesterday the ship, which South Korea believed to be carrying rifles and rocket launchers, could not dock at any port due to the U.N. sanctions (Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times, July 6).