North Korea test-fires strategic cruise missiles tipped with a dispersal warhead, state media reports
North Korea says it test-fired strategic cruise missiles on Monday carrying a dispersal warhead it claims can devastate an area of five to six hectares.
North Korea has test-fired strategic cruise missiles, its state news agency reported on Tuesday, in the latest display of weapons capability as tensions persist on the Korean peninsula.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the tests were carried out on Monday, 2 November, by the Missile Administration, and involved a cruise missile tipped with what it described as a medium-sized dispersal warhead.
KCNA was quoted as saying the warhead was capable of turning a target area of five to six hectares into ashes with its highest-density power, a claim that has not been independently verified.
A second part of the test examined the missile's ability to carry out a vertical strike against a target, with KCNA saying the test had perfected that capability by improving the missile's terminal manoeuvrability, adjusted for the natural and geographical characteristics of the targeted area.
South Korea's Korea Herald, citing KCNA, reported that General Kim Jong-sik, a member of the Workers' Party Central Military Commission, oversaw Monday's tests, and that the North had vowed to develop several types of cluster warheads and equip military units with them by the end of the year.
The cruise missile tests came a day after North Korea tested a cluster-bomb warhead that can be mounted on tactical ballistic missiles, according to the same reporting, continuing a series of weapons tests in late October and early November.
The latest tests also follow a rise in tension along the inter-Korean border, after a landmine blast wounded three South Korean soldiers, an incident cited by Agence France-Presse in its account of the new launches.
South Korea's military did not announce the cruise missile launch, just as it had not announced the previous test, and a Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson, Jang Do-young, said Seoul and Washington were closely coordinating and conducting a highly detailed analysis of the reported test's characteristics.
Unlike ballistic missile launches, cruise missile tests are not prohibited by United Nations Security Council sanctions, a distinction that has often shaped how such North Korean tests are treated internationally.
What happens next will depend in part on that joint South Korean and United States assessment, and on whether Pyongyang carries out further tests in the coming weeks as it pursues the wider range of warheads it says it plans to field by the end of the year.
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