‘Wonky, wobbly’ warheads may have been fake
SOME of the deadly new missiles proudly unveiled by North Korea in a military parade on Saturday were fake, it has been claimed.
An array of weapons were shown off in Pyongyang to celebrate 105 years since the nation’s founder Kim Il-sung was born.
But critics have questioned the validity of some of the missiles after noticing ‘wonky’ and ‘wobbling’ missiles, sparking rumours that Kim Jong-un dressed up empty, painted boxes as weapons.
Footage shows a procession of vehicles carrying missiles, with some of them appearing to have wonky nosecones.
Some pictures show a missile that appears with a nose piece pointing skywards, which led to speculation it was a fake.
Chad O’Carroll, of specialist service NK News, expressed doubts after seeing the nosecones of one group which ‘wobbled quite noticeably’.
But other experts thought the missile facing the most derision could possibly be an SA-3, older hardware obtained from the Soviets and therefore unlikely to be a fake.
Also on display was the Pukkuksong, a white-painted device on a blue trailer, which is claimed to be a submarinelaunched ballistic missile.
Submarine-launched devices could give the North the ability to strike from a vessel in the Pacific Ocean.
They could also reduce the effectiveness of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) defence system, which Washington and Seoul are deploying to the South.
Lee Il-Woo, an analyst at the private Korea Defence Network, told AFP: ‘I suspect they all might be mock-ups aimed to impress the outside world.’
On social media, people poked fun at the nation. One Twitter user said: ‘Does North Korea think they are fooling anyone with all those fake missiles on parade?’