BREAKING: North Korea Launches Short-Range Missiles on East Coast
North Korea has fired two short-range tactical missiles off its East coast
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SEOUL – North Korea has tested short-range missiles in the Sea of
Japan (known as the East Sea in Korea), in an apparent attempt to
counter-act joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, South Korean
news agency
Yonhap reported.
“North Korea test-launched a short-range missile in the East Sea [Sea
of Japan] this afternoon, amid the ongoing security crisis on the
Korean peninsula following Pyongyang’s third nuclear test last month,”
Yonhap news
said.
The source,
Yonhap said, was a military source within the
South Korean government. The North Korean military launched two KN-02
short-range missiles into international waters, the report said.
Graphic: BBC News
KN-02 missiles are mobile missiles. Based on the Soviet-era OTR-21
Tochka, they are launched from the back of SCUD-like trucks (see above
headline image) and, of all North Korean missiles, they have the
shortest range, as the above BBC infographic shows.
The short-range missile is a domestic variant of the Syrian ‘Scarab
A’ missile, and has a range of 120-140km. It is usually used to take out
large building targets and, when miniaturized, can carry a small,
tactical, nuclear load.
This is not a ’rocket’ test or ICBM launch, and this is not the first
time North Korea has tested this particular short-range missile.
Pyongyang has reportedly been ‘test-launching’ the same missile from its
East Sea [Sea of Japan] coast since 2004, and other launches were
detected in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Like the rest of the North Korean missile program, the KN-02 is based
on old Soviet technology (in this case the reverse engineered 9K79
Tochka provided to North Korea by Syria in
1996).
However, what separates the the KN-02 from the rest of the North’s
missile arsenal is that it uses solid-fuel, is more accurate than the
notoriously inaccurate SCUD derivatives, and is road mobile.
The KN-02
allegedly also
flies a cruise missile profile, making it difficult for PATRIOT missile
batteries located in South Korea to intercept. If fired from close
enough to the DMZ, it could target U.S. military installations in the
ROK.
The question today, however, is timing. With tensions at boiling
point, today’s launches will get a lot more attention than normal. John
Swenson-Wright senior lecturer in East Asian International Relations at
the University of Cambridge told
NK NEWS earlier today “the
danger of uncontrolled escalation in this situation seems real and
therefore something to be managed very very carefully.”
“The real problem is one of miscalculation and misjudgement by either
side – with the North believing it can risk a provocation comparable to
the 2010 Yeonpyeong shelling, and the South determined to respond
decisively.”
