North Korean leader Kim Jong-un oversaw a nuclear counterstrike drill involving a missile with a mock atomic warhead capable of reaching Japan’s west coast, state media reported yesterday.
Kim took his daughter to exercises over the weekend, where he issued a threat to the US over joint Freedom Shield military drills it is conducting with South Korea, saying that his country is preparing to make “an immediate and overwhelming nuclear counterattack anytime,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
Sunday’s launch of the solid-fueled KN-23, a short-range ballistic missile, was an element of drills simulating a nuclear counterattack against the US and South Korea, the KCNA said.
Photo: AFP / KCNA via KNS
The missile, fitted with detonators and devices to simulate a nuclear attack, exploded at a height of about 800m above its target, it said
The test seems to be the first of its type to be mentioned in state media.
State media photographs showed that the missile soared from what appeared to be a buried silo, which analysts said would help fire missiles with little warning while evading outside monitoring, as Pyongyang races to perfect ICBMs capable of striking anywhere in the US.
Photo: AFP / KCNA via KNS
“With a silo, you can quickly fire a missile, almost immediately, and without launch preparations being detected in advance, you can just press a button,” said Yang Uk, a fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
Unlike the KN-23, liquid-fueled missiles such as North Korea’s Hwasong-17 ICBM require time for fueling. With a silo that can take place underground, out of sight.
North Korea typically relies on mobile launchers, but its lack of infrastructure could make launches from such trucks challenging, Yang said.
“But the downside is that silos can be detected with satellite imagery, so someone would always keep an eye on them, and they might just be incapacitated in a pre-emptive strike,” he said.
North Korea started breaking ground on the silo in late January, which means the deployment time for a missile based in such a structure could be less than 60 days, said Decker Eveleth at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California.
Satellite imagery on Feb. 13 and March 18 indicated recent excavation and construction of possible fixed launch sites at the North’s Sohae missile launching station, said Joseph Dempsey, a defense researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS