Military conducts missile search south of NLL... "Last night's missile presumed to be old model"

Suspected Skud Series Using Liquid Fuel

North Korean ballistic missile

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hee-jun] Military authorities are conducting search operations to recover North Korea's short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) that fell south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the East Sea two days ago.

According to the military on the 4th, a naval rescue ship is carrying out search operations in the area to locate missile debris. North Korea fired three SRBMs into the East Sea from the Wonsan area in Gangwon Province at around 8:51 a.m. on the 2nd, with one missile landing 26 km south of the NLL, 57 km east of Sokcho, and 167 km northwest of Ulleungdo.

This was the first time since the division of Korea that North Korea's ballistic missiles crossed the NLL.

Meanwhile, the three SRBMs launched by North Korea from 9:35 p.m. to 9:49 p.m. the previous day from the Goksan area in North Hwanghae Province into the East Sea are known to be older liquid-fueled missiles. In this case, it is highly likely that they fired missiles from the Scud-B/C series.

North Korea launched these missiles immediately after issuing a statement condemning the extension of the South Korea-U.S. joint air exercise "Vigilant Storm." Park Jong-chon, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea and considered the top military official in North Korea, criticized, "(Regarding the extension of the exercise) this is a very dangerous and wrong choice," adding, "The irresponsible decision by the U.S. and South Korea is pushing the current situation, caused by provocative military actions of the allied forces, into an uncontrollable phase."

Regarding the possibility of North Korea firing older missiles, there is speculation that they may have been trying to regulate the number of newly developed missiles launched consecutively this year or explicitly express their opposition by exposing the lengthy liquid-fuel loading process.

A military official said, "We are analyzing the details and there are parts that need further evaluation."

Newly developed North Korean SRBMs such as the North Korean version of the Iskander (KN-23), the North Korean version of the ATACMS (KN-24), and the super-large multiple rocket launcher (KN-25) use solid fuel, which allows for rapid launch capabilities.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.