hankyoreh

through the website 38 North

The ballistic missile that North Korea recently claimed to have successfully launched was fired not from a submarine but rather from a submerged barge, according to one analyst. However, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense dismissed the claim, confirming that the missile was in fact launched from a submarine.

“There is considerable reason to doubt North Korea’s announcement that it launched a missile from a submarine. It looks as if the missile was fired from a barge 10 meters wide and 22 meters long that was submerged about two or three meters below the surface,” said Joseph Bermudez, Jr., during a conference call with reporters that was organized on May 12 by 38 North, a website specializing in North Korea. Bermudez is a senior analyst at AllSource Analysis, a US firm that analyses commercial satellite imagery.

“Satellite imagery from May 9 shows a barge anchored at the stern of the submarine. This barge had been anchored at the south shipyard in Sinpo, South Hamgyong Province, since Oct. 2015,” Bermudez said.

“It would have been virtually impossible for North Korea, which launched the submarine last October, to test a submarine-launched ballistic missile in only six or seven months. For North Korea to have successfully carried out an underwater launch test is far beyond the current level of North Korea‘s technology.”

Bermudez explained that test launching a ballistic missile from a barge is a standard type of experiment used in the early stages of developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). He also said that the photo of the underwater launch that North Korea made public appears to have been digitally manipulated by Photoshop to exaggerate the force of the explosion.

“US intelligence agencies assessed that the missile test was more of an ejection test - a launch from underwater that fires the missile out of a simulated launch tube into the air [. . .] U.S. officials do not believe the missile was launched from a submerged submarine,” the Washington Free Beacon, a US online newspaper with a conservative bent, said in a report that quoted officials at US intelligence agencies.

“Military authorities concluded that North Korea conducted an ejection test of the missile from a Sinpo-class submarine. This conclusion is based not only on satellite imagery but also on other intelligence, including telephone conversations inside North Korea,” a senior official with the South Korean Defense Ministry said.

“After successfully carrying out an ejection test on land last year, North Korea proceeded with ejection tests first from a barge and then from a submarine. May 8 was not the first ejection test from a submarine, either. After succeeding at a number of previous tests from a submarine, they carried out the test in front of Kim Jong-un,” the official said.

By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent

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