N. Korea conducts missile launch tests

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Monday it has conducted submarine-launched cruise missile tests, days after its leader Kim Jong Un ordered his troops to be ready to repel its rivals’ “frantic war preparation moves.”

The test on Sunday came a day before the U.S. and South Korean militaries begin large-scale joint military drills that North Korea views as a rehearsal for invasion.

North Korea’s official news outlet, the Korean Central News Agency, said Monday that the missile launches showed the North’s resolve to respond with “overwhelming powerful forces” to the intensifying military maneuvers by the “the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces.”

KCNA also implied that the North aims to arm the cruise missiles tested with nuclear warheads.

It said the missiles flew for more than two hours, drawing figure-eightshaped patterns in waters off the country’s eastern coast, and hit targets 930 miles away. The missiles were fired from the 8.24 Yongung ship, KCNA said, referencing a submarine that North Korea has used to conduct all its known submarinelaunched ballistic missile tests since 2016.

Sunday’s actions were the North’s first underwater-launched missile tests since the country testfired a weapon from a silo under an inland reservoir last October. Last May, the country test-launched a short-range ballistic missile from the same vessel.

North Korea’s command of submarinelaunched missile systems would make it harder for adversaries to detect launches in advance and provide the North with retaliatory attack capability. Experts say it would take years, extensive resources and major technological improvements for the heavily sanctioned nation to build several submarines that could travel quietly in seas and reliably execute strikes.

After a record number of missile tests last year, North Korea has carried out several additional rounds since Jan. 1. Before Sunday’s launches, the country also test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile potentially capable of reaching the mainland U.S.; short-range, nuclear-capable missiles designed to hit South Korea; and other weapons.

Experts say Kim, who sees his nuclear arsenal as his best security guarantee, is trying to pressure the United States into accepting the North as a legitimate nuclear power and relax international economic sanctions.

Earlier Monday, South Korea’s military said it had detected the launch from a submarine in waters near the North’s eastern port city of Sinpo on Sunday. Sinpo has a major submarine-building shipyard.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities were analyzing details of the operation.

North Korea sees regular South Korea-U.S. military exercises as a major security threat, though the allies say their drills are defensive. Some observers say North Korea uses its rivals’ drills as a pretext to test weapons and modernize its nuclear arsenal to secure an upper hand in dealings with the United States.

Last Thursday, Kim supervised a live-fire artillery drill simulating attacks on a South Korean airfield. He ordered his military to maintain the capability to “overwhelmingly respond ” to enemy actions, according to KCNA.

The news agency reported Sunday that Kim also convened a key meeting on military affairs to adopt unspecified steps to make “more effective, powerful and offensive use of the war deterrent” in light of U.S. and South Korean maneuvers.

South Korean-U.S. drills are to run until March 23.

The allies’ last large field training, called Foal Eagle, was held in 2018, the militaries said.