Missile firings: “tactical nuclear” simulations, according to Pyongyang

Since the beginning of October, North Korea has increased the firing of ballistic missiles. Experts expect another nuclear test.

Source AFP

In two weeks, the North Korean regime has carried out at least seven ballistic missile launches.
© ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP

Published on 10/10/2022 at 01:59
– Modified 10/10/2022 at 02:36

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LThe missile launches carried out by North Korea in recent weeks were “tactical nuclear” simulations, and were personally supervised by leader Kim Jong Un, the official North Korean agency KCNA said on Monday (October 10th). “Korean People’s Army (KPA) units responsible for the use of tactical nuclear weapons held military exercises from September 25 to October 9 to test and evaluate the nuclear deterrent and counterattack capability of the country,” KCNA wrote.

The agency justified these exercises by the joint American-South Korean military maneuvers in the region, “an unfortunate attitude which further aggravates tension in the region while openly constituting a military threat” for North Korea, according to it. The seven missile launches carried out by North Korea in the past two weeks were exercises “simulating real warfare”, KCNA added. “Kim Jong-Un, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and chairman of its Central Military Commission, led the military drills on site,” the state agency said.

While talks on the disarmament of North Korea have long been deadlocked, Pyongyang has stepped up its arms tests since the beginning of the year. In particular, it fired a ballistic missile over Japan last week, the first in five years. Many experts and officials also believe that North Korea has completed preparations for a new nuclear test, which would be the seventh in its history and the first since 2017.

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Pyongyang simulated the “neutralization of South Korean airports”

Also according to KCNA, the exercises included a “simulation of the loading of tactical nuclear warheads” on board a missile which was then launched from a silo located under an artificial lake in the northwest of the country on 25 september. Other tests carried out in the following days consisted, among other things, in simulating the “neutralization of airports” in South Korea, the “strike of the main command centers” and “the main ports of the enemies”, according to KCNA.

As for the projectile that flew over Japan on October 4, it was a “new type of intermediate-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile”, the agency said. This missile traveled 4,500 km before falling in the Pacific, which experts estimate to be the longest distance covered so far by a North Korean projectile during a test.

During a giant military parade at the end of April in Pyongyang, Kim Jong-Un had promised to develop the country’s nuclear forces “at the greatest possible speed”. And in late September, the North Korean regime adopted a new doctrine arguing that the country’s nuclear power status was “irreversible”.

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North Korea won’t be ‘backing down anytime soon’

“They’re looking for a tactical nuclear weapon, that’s for sure,” said US security analyst Ankit Panda, who “suspects that they will gradually nuclearize many of their new short-range missiles. scope “. The fact that North Korea described its seven recent missile launches as being linked to “tactical nuclear operations units” is significant, the analyst added. “It’s interesting because it includes everything from short-range ballistic missiles to IRBMs,” he tweeted.

North Korea also claimed to have carried out “a large-scale combined air attack simulation” involving “more than 150 planes”, and also supervised by Kim Jong Un. On Thursday, South Korea said it had launched 30 of its fighter jets after detecting 12 North Korean aircraft flying in formation and conducting firing exercises near the inter-Korean border.

“Kim probably wants to tell the United States and South Korea that any show of solidarity and readiness of the alliance will be in vain,” Rand corporation analyst Soo Kim told Agence France-Presse. According to this expert, “we probably won’t see North Korea back down anytime soon, and there is every reason to believe that the allies will not bend easily this time either”.

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