BackNorth Korean mobile ballistic missile called top threat by US
South Korea, US have said they will begin talks about deploying an American ballistic missile interceptor system (Thaad) on the Korean peninsula
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Washington: North Korea continues to develop a mobile intercontinental ballistic missile that “would likely be capable of reaching much of the continental United States," the Pentagon said in a new report to Congress on the secretive regime’s military capabilities.
The KN-08 missile would have an estimated range of more than 3,400 miles (5,500 kilometers), and North Korea already has six “road-mobile" launchers for it, according to the annual report delivered to congressional committees on Friday and obtained by Bloomberg News. A mobile missile can be harder to track than a silo-based weapon, although the threat from the KN-08 depends on whether it’s “successfully designed and developed," the defence department cautioned.
The new report, reaffirming a judgment about the KN-08 made by the Pentagon in 2013, arrives amid rising tensions after North Korea conducted a nuclear test on 6 January and launched a long-range rocket on 7 February. South Korea and the US have said they will begin talks about deploying an American ballistic missile interceptor system known as Thaad on the Korean peninsula.
In the US, the House sent legislation to President Barack Obama on Friday authorizing new sanctions against North Korea. The measure, H.R. 757, would impose sanctions against individuals, companies and foreign governments that contribute to North Korea’s nuclear programme and ballistic missile development. It also would penalize those who send luxury goods enjoyed by the regime’s elite or aid in its censorship or human rights abuses.
China objections
Russia, which has previously urged the US against unilateral steps on North Korea, expressed concerns about the possible deployment in a discussion between its deputy foreign minister Igor Morgulov and the South Korean ambassador in Moscow, the ministry said in a Wednesday statement. China voiced its objections in a Friday meeting between its foreign minister Wang Yi and US secretary of state John Kerry in Munich.
The US must be cautious and not undermine China’s security interests or complicate regional stability, China’s Wang was quoted as saying in a statement on the Chinese foreign ministry’s website. In the meeting with Kerry, Wang communicated China’s objections to plans for South Korea to host anti- ballistic Thaad missile systems, according to the statement.
At the same meeting, China and US agreed to speed up United Nations consultations to reach a new resolution on measures to deter the development of North Korea’s nuclear programme. The main goal is to work together to restart dialogue on the Korean peninsula nuclear issue, according to the same statement.
Other sections of the defence department report said that North Korea:
■ Is pursuing the capability to launch ballistic missiles from submarines, reflecting “the regime’s commitment to diversifying its missile force."
■ Views offensive cyber operations as a tool “it can employ with little risk from reprisal attacks, in part because its networks are largely separated from the Internet."
■ May consider the use of chemical and biological weapons.
Missiles on parade
US intelligence on Kim Jong Un’s reclusive regime in North Korea depends in part on watching the country’s annual military parades, an exercise that spawns debate about whether the equipment displayed is functional or mock-ups. Four missiles on KN-08 launchers in an October parade were “noticeably different" from those shown off before, according to the report, which assumes the weapons displayed “are generally representative of missiles that will be fielded."
“ICBMs are extremely complex systems that require multiple flight tests to identify and correct design or manufacturing defects," the Pentagon report said. Without flight tests, its current reliability “as a weapon system would be low."
Pentagon officials outlining a proposed $583 billion defence budget on Tuesday emphasized that North Korea now looms as the prime nuclear threat to the US, with the KN-08 viewed as its potentially most dangerous weapon.
QuickTake: North Korea’s nukes
Vice Admiral James Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency, revealed that concern about the KN-08, not missiles launched from silos, was behind the decision in 2013 by then- defence secretary Chuck Hagel to expand a force of 30 missile interceptors based in Alaska and California to 44 by next year.
The expansion is to counter “that very threat," Syring told reporters at the Pentagon. The US plans to conduct its next missile intercept test in November against a target replicating the expected range and speed of the KN-08, he said.
‘Limited capability’
Raytheon Co. builds the hit-to-kill warhead at the center of the US’s $34 billion ground-based missile defence network, which is managed by Boeing Co. The system successfully intercepted a dummy warhead in June 2014 after two high-profile failures in 2010.
Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester, said in his latest annual assessment of major weapons that despite past setbacks, the missile defence system has demonstrated a “limited capability to defend the US homeland from small numbers of intermediate-range or intercontinental ballistic missile threats launched from North Korea or Iran." Bloomberg
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