Kim Jong Un was accompanied by his teenage daughter on Saturday as he oversaw a major missile test involving 12 precision rocket launchers, North Korean state media reported.
According to the state-run Korean Central News Agency, a long-range artillery unit of the Korean People’s Army carried out the drill on Saturday using twelve 600mm ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies.
It said the test showcased the “destructive power” of North Korea’s nuclear-capable weapons, a day after Japan and South Korea raised alarm over the salvo of missile tests.
The rockets fired in a single salvo and struck an island target in the East Sea about 364 km away with what authorities said was “100 per cent accuracy”, demonstrating the system’s concentration strike capability.
The North Korean media report came a day after South Korea’s military said it detected about 10 ballistic missiles fired from North Korea’s capital region toward the eastern sea.
South Korea’s national security council called the launches a provocation that violated UN Security Council resolutions that bans any ballistic activities by North Korea.
The exercise involved 12 launchers firing in waves, making it a larger coordinated salvo than many earlier demonstrations of the system.
Mr Kim said that the drill would expose enemies within the 420km (260 mile) striking range, to “uneasiness” and give them “a deep understanding of the destructive power of tactical nuclear weapon,” KCNA said. He apparently referred to South Korea and US troops stationed in South Korea.
“If this weapon is used, the opponent’s military infrastructure within its striking range can never survive,” Mr Kim said, according to KCNA.
Mr Kim added, “Worldwide, there exists no tactical weapon that surpasses the performance of this weapon system.”
Pictures released of the military drill showed Mr Kim and his daughter, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae and aged about 13, walking near huge olive-green launch trucks and looking at weapons being launched from them. The girl has been accompanying her father at numerous high-profile events like missile tests and military parades since late 2022, stoking outside speculation that she’s being groomed as his heir.
Dramatic pictures of the launch showed multiple rockets, at least eight in a single row, being launched simultaneously from ground-based launchers in a wide, open landscape, leaving thick white smoke trails behind them.
Experts say North Korea’s large-sized rocket launchers blur the boundaries between artillery systems and ballistic missiles because they can create their own thrust and are guided during delivery. North Korea has said some of these systems are capable of delivering nuclear warheads.
The drills came in response to the springtime US-South Korean Freedom Shield training, a computer-simulated command post exercise, is to run through 19 March. North Korea often reacts to the exercise with its own weapons tests and fiery rhetoric.
North Korea, analysts said, wants to show it has the capabilities to overwhelm missile defences and survive preemptive strikes.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said Kim Jong Un is likely drawing lessons from the US and Israel’s joint operation on Iran.
He said North Korea has been focusing resources on its navy lately, with possible support from Russia. But with America demonstrating its ability to sink most of the Iranian navy within a matter of a single week, the Kim regime is trying to show that it “could inflict unacceptable harm if its naval forces come under attack” with this latest test.
