North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles into its eastern sea on Monday, according to South Korea.
Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed the launches in a statement but couldn't immediately say how far the projectiles flew or whether the weapons were ballistic or rocket artillery.
The weapons demonstration comes after a months-long hiatus that could have been forced by the coronavirus crisis in Asia.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles into its eastern sea on Monday as it begins to resume weapons demonstrations after a months-long hiatus that could have been forced by the coronavirus crisis in Asia.
The launches from an area near Wonsan came two days after North Korea's state media said leader Kim Jong Un supervised an artillery drill aimed at testing the combat readiness of units in front-line and eastern areas.
Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed the launches in a statement but couldn't immediately say how far the projectiles flew or whether the weapons were ballistic or rocket artillery.
Kim had entered the New Year vowing to bolster his nuclear deterrent in face of "gangster-like" U.S. sanctions and pressure, using a key ruling party meeting in late December to warn of "shocking" action over stalled nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration.
He also said the North would soon reveal a new "strategic weapon" and insisted the North was no longer "unilaterally bound" to a self-imposed suspension on the testing of nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
But the lack of testing activity in past months had experts wondering whether the North was holding back its weapons displays while pushing a tough campaign to against the coronavirus, which state media has described as a matter of "national existence."
Kim's latest show of force is apparently aimed at boosting military morale, strengthening internal unity and showing that his country is doing fine despite outside worries of how the North would contend with an outbreak.
North Korea has yet to confirm any COVID-19 cases, although state media have hinted that an uncertain number of people have been quarantined after exhibiting symptoms. North Korea has shut down nearly all cross-border traffic, banned tourists, intensified screening at entry points and mobilized tens of thousands of health workers to monitor residents and isolate those with symptoms.
Kim and President Donald Trump met three times since embarking on their high-stakes nuclear diplomacy in 2018, but negotiations have faltered since their second summit last February in Vietnam, where the Americans rejected North Korean demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capability.
Following the collapse in Hanoi, the North ended a 17-month pause in ballistic activity and conducted at least 13 rounds of weapons launches last year, using the standstill in talks to expand its military capabilities.
North Korea fired three short-range projectiles into the sea on Sunday in an apparent strike drill, South Korea's military said.
The military said it is "monitoring the situation in case there are additional launches and maintaining a readiness posture."
The launches come a week after North Korea fired two short-range projectiles into its eastern sea under the guidance of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korea fired three short-range projectiles into its eastern sea on Monday, South Korea's military said.
South Korea's Joint Chief of Staff said in a statement that it detected three projectiles fired from the South Hamyong Province at around 7:36 a.m., according to Yonhap News Agency. The projectiles flew about 200 kilometers (125 miles) and reached a maximum altitude of around 50 kilometers (31 miles).
The military said the launches appear to be part of an artillery strike drill involving multiple types of rocket launchers and added that they are "monitoring the situation in case there are additional launches and maintaining a readiness posture."
The launches come a week after North Korea fired two short-range projectiles into its eastern sea. According to Yonhap, the launches took place under the guidance of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The country also conducted a drill on February 28.
On Saturday, North Korea slammed Britain, Germany, France, Estonia and Belgium, for calling a closed-door UN Security Council meeting to discuss North Korea's missile launches.
"The illogical thinking and sophism of these countries are just gradually bearing a close resemblance to the United States, which is hostile to us," a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement to state news agency KCNA.
"The reckless behavior of these countries instigated by the US will become a fuse that will trigger our yet another momentous reaction," the spokesperson added.
Relations between Pyongyang and Washington remain tense after a 2019 summit between President Donald Trump and Kim in Hanoi ended without an agreement.
An Iranian navy ship accidentally fired a missile at a support vessel during a training exercise in the Gulf of Oman, killing one and injuring 15 others, Iranian media reported Monday.
State television described the missile strike as an accident, saying the Konarak, a Hendijan-class support ship taking part in the exercise, had remained too close to the target.
Iran regularly holds exercises in the region, which is closed to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world's oil passes.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian missile fired during a training exercise in the Gulf of Oman struck a support vessel near its target, killing at least one sailor and wounding 15 others, Iranian media reported Monday, amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S.
The friendly fire incident happened on Sunday near the port of Jask, some 1,270 kilometers (790 miles) southeast of Tehran, in the Gulf of Oman, state TV said.
The missile struck the Konarak, a Hendijan-class support ship, taking part in the exercise.
State television described the missile strike as an accident, saying the Konarak had remained too close to the target. The Konarak had been putting targets out in the water for other ships to fire upon, it said.
A local hospital admitted 12 sailors and treated another three with slight wounds, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
Iranian media said the Konarak had been overhauled in 2018 and was able to launch sea and anti-ship missiles. The Dutch-made, 47-meter (155-foot) vessel was in service since 1988 and had capacity of 40 tons. It usually carries a crew of 20 sailors.
Iran regularly holds exercises in the region, which is closed to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world's oil passes. The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which monitors the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iranian media rarely report on mishaps during its exercises, signaling the severity of the incident. This incident also comes amid months of heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 and imposed crushing sanctions on the country.
In the Oval Office on Friday, President Donald Trump boasted about US military strength, revealing the development of what he calls a "super-duper missile."
Trump said the weapon could reach speeds 17 times faster than current missiles and that it just got the "go-ahead."
The Pentagon did not offer any clarity on what the president was talking about, nor did the White House.
President Donald Trump said during an Oval Office event Friday that the US was developing a "super-duper missile" to compete against America's adversaries.
"We're building, right now, incredible military equipment at a level that nobody has ever seen before. We have no choice with the adversaries we have out there," the president said.
"We have — I call it, the 'super-duper missile,'" Trump added. "I heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now, when you take the fastest missile we have right now. You've heard Russia has five times and China's working on five or six times. We have one 17 times, and it's just gotten the go-ahead."
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper nodded along as Trump spoke but did not provide any details.
"I call it the super duper missile"
Trump explaining how he describes a missile being developed by the Space Force that is travels at a speed 17x faster than current missiles. pic.twitter.com/bFmJj2slIJ
Asked for more information on what the president was talking about, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said: "I'm going to have to refer you back to the White House on that. I don't have any information to give you on that."
"I would just refer you back to the president's remarks & the Pentagon. I don't have any new information on that at this point," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in response to questions about the weapon.
"We have the superfast missiles — tremendous number of the superfast. We call them 'superfast,' where they're four, five, six, and even seven times faster than an ordinary missile," he said at the time.
"We need that because, again, Russia has some," he added. "And China, as you know, is doing it."
It is unclear what specific weapon the president may have been referring to in his comments, but the US is developing hypersonic weapons, a key area of competition with Russia and China.
While the name references speed, hypersonic missiles are not deadly because of their speed, but rather because they can maneuver and fly along unpredictable flight paths, giving them the ability to skirt defenses.
The US conducted a test of a hypersonic glide vehicle in March, verifying a design that will be used to develop weaponry expected to come online in the years ahead.
President Donald Trump revealed new details Saturday about a mystery hypersonic missile the US is currently developing, a missile he called the "super duper missile" last month.
Last month, he said in the Oval Office that the US was working on a missile 17 times faster than any other missile.
Speaking at West Point Saturday, Trump said that the US is working on a "hypersonic missile that goes 17 times faster than the fastest missile currently available in the world," explaining that it can hit targets 1,000 miles away and strike within 14 inches of center.
President Donald Trump revealed new details about a mystery missile during an address at West Point Saturday, appearing to offer new insight into a high-speed weapon he previously called the "super duper missile."
In mid-May, Trump boasted about US military strength from the Oval Office, and in the process, he announced that the US is building a new missile faster than anything currently available.
"We're building incredible military equipment at a level that nobody has ever seen before. We have no choice with the adversaries we have out there," the president said.
"We have — I call it, the 'super duper missile,'" Trump said, explaining that he "heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now, when you take the fastest missile we have right now."
"You've heard Russia has five times and China's working on five or six times. We have one 17 times, and it's just gotten the go-ahead," he said.
The prevailing view of the president's remarks was that the president was referring to some type of hypersonic weapon. The Department of Defense said in a statement shortly after the president's announcement that the Pentagon "is working on developing a range of hypersonic missiles to counter our adversaries."
Hypersonic weapons are able to travel at high speeds and along unpredictable flight paths, making them difficult for traditional air-and-missile defense systems to intercept. The development of these weapons has become a point of competition between the US, Russia, and China.
Speaking to the graduating class of 2020 at the US Military Academy at West Point Saturday, Trump provided new information on the weapon he boasted about last month.
"We are building new ships, bombers, jet fighters, and helicopters by the hundreds. New tanks, military satellites, rockets and missiles, even a hypersonic missile that goes 17 times faster than the fastest missile currently available in the world."
He said that the missile can strike a target 1,000 miles away, striking within 14 inches of center point. These appear to be the most specific details to date about the missile in question.
Trump's description of the new missile as being 17 times faster than the fastest missile currently available in the world is likely an exaggeration or a misunderstanding, for while hypersonic systems tend to be faster than some missiles, such as Tomahawk cruise missiles, they tend to be slower than some ballistic missiles.
For instance, the US Air Force's LGM-30 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile can hit speeds as high as Mach 23, over 17,600 mph. A weapon able to travel at speeds 17 times faster than that would be unbelievably fast.
In February, the president touted US military strength while discussing "superfast missiles," which he described with slower speeds than the weapon he discussed Saturday.
"We have the superfast missiles — tremendous number of the superfast. We call them 'superfast,' where they're four, five, six, and even seven times faster than an ordinary missile," he said at the time.
The US conducted a test of a hypersonic glide vehicle in March, verifying a design that will be used to develop weaponry expected to come online in the next few years.
Kim Jong Un has a huge new intercontinental ballistic missile that he showed off at a military parade over the weekend, and it could offer North Korea some valuable capabilities, assuming the weapon actually survives long enough to matter.
North Korea test-fired its first ICBM, the Hwasong-14, twice in July 2017. In November that year, it test-fired the larger Hwasong-15.
Analysts argued that these road-mobile, liquid-fueled missiles significantly bolstered North Korea's long-range strike capabilities and nuclear deterrence, assessing that the Hwasong-14 could reach the West Coast while the bigger Hwasong-15 could theoretically range all of the continental US.
This past Saturday, for the first time in three years, North Korea unveiled a new ICBM, one analysts say looks to be among the largest road-mobile, liquid-fueled missiles in the world. Melissa Hanham, deputy director of Open Nuclear Network, called the missile a "monster."
As for why North Korea decided to build a new, even larger liquid-fueled missile, Hanham told Insider that it is a question that "a lot of us are scratching our heads over."
The large size of the new missile offers the possibility of a larger warhead with a higher explosive yield, increasing destructive power and reducing demands for increased accuracy. It also opens the door to multiple warheads, with which North Korea could try to overwhelm US missile defense systems.
But these improved capabilities only really matter if it survives long enough for the North Koreans to get it in the air.
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If you are trying to build a survivable road-mobile ICBM force, then solid-propellant missiles are definitely the preferred choice, as both Russia and China have demonstrated in the development of their respective arsenals.
With solid-fueled missiles, "you do not have to pre-fuel the missiles before you use them. You don't generate a bunch of satellite signatures by having support assets. Overall, it's just much safer to operate," Ankit Panda, the Stanton senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Insider.
Liquid-fueled "missiles use hypergolic propellants that explode spontaneously if the oxidizer and fuel make contact, so dealing with that in a crisis, when crews are potentially agitated, is something that most nuclear states just don't want to deal with," Panda said.
While solid-fueled missiles could be rolled out and fired with little to no warning, a large liquid-fueled missile like North Korea's new missile would require more preparation and a lot more time exposed to threats.
For North Korea to safely deploy and operate its big liquid-propellant missile, which is carried on a very large 11-axle transporter erector launcher, it would need the support of additional military personnel, fuel trucks, and possibly even a crane to assist with erecting the missile, Hanham said.
All that equipment and personnel would create a "very big visible signature" for anyone looking for the missile, Hanham added.
Once erected, fueling the missile could take hours. "That is a huge window for preemption with conventional long-range strike capabilities the US would have available," Panda said.
The main advantage offered by a liquid-fueled missile is that you can throw more weight, such as larger or multiple warheads, farther, but it comes at the cost of increased vulnerability.
"The missile offers the opportunity to launch multiple warheads and possibly penetration aids to the US mainland," Hanham said. "The trade-off is that the missile is easier to track and easier to strike preemptively."
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"If I were Kim Jong Un, I think I would be pretty happy with the Hwasong-15. I would not invest more in liquid missiles," Xu Tianran, an Open Nuclear Network analyst, told Insider. But because they did build another such missile, it indicates they may have a working concept of operations in mind.
There is a more survivable, albeit significantly riskier, deployment option for the missiles that North Korea might be considering — horizontal fueling with a rollout-to-launch model.
The new missile "may or may not have the capability to be fueled horizontally," a possibility that can't be ruled out at this time, Xu said.
China stores its older liquid-fueled DF-4 ICBMs — which entered service in the 1970s and appear similar in size to North Korea's new ICBM — in tunnels under mountains around the country. Were China to launch them, it would roll them out, erect them, and fire them just outside the tunnels.
North Korea could take a similar approach but instead fuel them horizontally before erecting them, assuming doing so would not put too much stress on the frame, experts said.
"From a safety perspective, it is undesirable to fuel your missile before you erect it," Hanham said, "but it's something the North Koreans might choose to do to increase the speed with which they might launch."
"It is not a perfect concept of operations, but you can imagine them taking certain risks," Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told Insider.
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"Things don't have to be perfect" to be effective, Lewis said.
During its military parade over the weekend, North Korea displayed four new ICBMs, indicating it could build more if it decided to do so. It could then scatter its arsenal across the country. At that point, the question is whether the US could find them all in time.
"If even one of these things gets through, that is a really spectacularly bad day for the United States, and I think that's the level at which deterrence is operating," Lewis said. "I think the value of this system is that it exists."
The new ICBM is also, Panda said, a "reminder that the North Koreans continue to qualitatively refine their missile capabilities," despite efforts to curb their progress.
And just because North Korea has not displayed a solid-fueled ICBM does not mean it is not working on one.
"Don't fall into the trap of believing North Korea's arsenal only reflects what they've shown us in parades," Lewis said. "I think there are a lot of capabilities that North Korea has that they just haven't shown."
An amateur video emerged over the weekend of what appears to be a Chinese H-6N carrying a previously-unseen mystery missile.
In the very short video, which was first reported by The War Zone, a previously-unseen missile can be seen slung beneath the gray bomber as it prepares to land at a nearby airfield. The video appears to mark the first time an armed H-6N has been seen. It offers new insight into the bomber's payload.
China has been flying Xi'an H-6 bombers since the late 1960s, but as China works to modernize its force, it has taken major steps to improve the aircraft that began as a Chinese license-built version of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 Badger bomber.
The H-6K variant entered service in 2009. The Pentagon assesses that the H-6K "can carry six [land-attack cruise missiles], giving the PLA a long-range standoff precision strike capability that can range Guam from home airfields in mainland China." The H-6N, a derivative of the H-6K, builds on that capability.
In a 2018 report on China's growing military might, the Pentagon said that the Chinese military was upgrading its aircraft to carry new air-launched ballistic missiles.
Then, at a military parade the following year, China unveiled the improved H-6N variant.
In its latest China military power report, the Pentagon characterizes the H-6N as "a derivative of the H-6K optimized for long-range strikes," explaining that instead of a traditional bomb bay, the plane features a modified fuselage designed to allow the bomber to carry an air-launched ballistic missile externally.
Xu Tianran, an Open Nuclear Network analyst, told Insider he thinks the missile in the video is an air-launched anti-ship ballistic missile.
"It is not surprising that after land-based ASBMs, [the] Chinese military wants to have aerial platforms for more flexibility and diversity," Xu explained, pointing to China's efforts to develop anti-access/area-denial weapons aimed at deterring the US Navy, specifically it's 11-carrier fleet.
Another possibility that has been put forward since the video of the H-6N came out is that the missile is some sort of hypersonic weapon. The development of these weapons, for which there is currently no adequate defense, is a key area of competition between the US and China.
The War Zone noted that the missile in the video looks similar to the ground-launched DF-17 hypersonic weapon China unveiled at the same military parade where it first showed off its new H-6N bomber. The DF-17, a surface-to-surface missile, relies on a ballistic missile to accelerate a DF-ZF hypersonic boost-glide vehicle to speeds over Mach 5.
The US Air Force is currently developing the AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), a hypersonic weapon that has been seen being carried by the B-52 Stratofortress bomber.
Given the low quality of the footage of the armed H-6N that appeared over the weekend, it is difficult to say with any certainty exactly what it was carrying, and it is unclear what stage of development the weapon may be in.
Regardless of whether the missile is an ASBM or a hypersonic weapon or something else entirely, it is clear that China is taking big steps to improve the warfighting capabilities of its bombers.
The US Navy destroyer USS Zumwalt fired a missile for the first time during a recent weapons test, the Navy announced Monday.
The Zumwalt, a first-in-class stealth destroyer, test-fired an SM-2 missile from the ship's launcher last Tuesday at the Naval Air Weapons Center Weapons Division Sea Test Range in Point Mugu, California.
The Zumwalt was commissioned in 2016, but it was not delivered to the Navy with a functional combat system until earlier this year.
While the Zumwalt program has faced a number of significant setbacks, including cost overruns and major delays, a big issue was the ship's main guns — the two 155mm guns of the Advanced Gun System.
When the Navy reduced its order from roughly thirty ships to just three, the cost of the rounds shot up. A single round of the Long-Range Land Attack Projectile was going to cost almost $1 million — a figure closer to guided missiles than artillery shells.
And that wasn't the only problem with the guns. Vice Adm. William Merz, then the deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems, told Congress in 2018 that the guns also lacked the desired range. "We just cannot get the thing to fly as far as we want," he said, adding that the Navy was considering getting rid of the guns altogether.
The Navy was ultimately forced to reevaluate the combat system and change the ship's mission. Instead of naval fire support for ground units, the ship has been retasked to an anti-ship combat role.
Now, the Zumwalt has also tested its ability to launch missiles. The SM-2 that was test-fired last week is a surface-to-air missile that can also be used against ships, and it showed the Zumwalt can defend itself from an incoming missile.
Capt. Matt Schroeder, the DDG-1000 program manager, said in a statement that"today's successful test not only demonstrates the ship's capability to fire missiles and conduct self-defense, it is also a significant step toward more advanced combat system testing and operations for our Navy's most technically innovative warship."
The Zumwalt is expected to achieve initial operating capability in 2021.
The test is reportedly intended to simulate a real-world large missile strike against sea- and ground-based targets, so the ship and its weapons will face various countermeasures during testing.
Two more tests, both involving the Northern Fleet's Admiral Gorshkov, were conducted in late November and early December. During the former test, a Zircon missile was fired at a naval target 280 miles away, and during the latter, the missile struck a land-based target roughly 215 miles away.
In each of the three tests, only one missile was fired, RIA Novosti reported Monday.
"The work on the Tsirkon system and the stage of carrying out a successful test of this missile is a major event not only for the Armed Forces but for entire Russia," Russian President Vladimir Putin said after the test in October.
Putin added that "equipping our Armed Forces — the army and the fleet — with advanced weapons systems, which indeed have no rivals in the world, certainly ensure our state's defense capacity for many years to come."
The missile is expected to be adopted by both surface ships and submarines once testing is completed. RIA Novosti reports that serial deliveries to the Russian navy could begin next year.
The development of hypersonic weaponry is a key area of competition for Russia, the US, and China because there is currently no adequate defense against these weapons.
Despite what the name implies, hypersonic missiles are not a serious threat solely because of their speed. They are dangerous because they can maneuver and fly along unpredictable flight paths, giving them the ability to skirt traditional missile defenses not designed to counter this type of threat.
The US Navy, working in collaboration with other service branches, is developing its own hypersonic missile for surface ships and submarines that is expected to come online in the next few years.
Video footage captured the moment that Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired by Iran-backed fighters.
A Saudi-led military coalition said it intercepted a ballistic missile attack from Yemen on Saturday that was aimed at Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
State news agency SPA reported that Civil Defense Lt Col Mohammed Al-Hammadi said a ballistic missile had been launched towards Riyadh by Houthi fighters in Yemen, who Iran backs.
It reported that the missile was "intercepted and destroyed."
SPA also reported that there were no reported deaths or injuries, with damage done to just one house in the city.
Drones were also aimed at "civilians and civilian objects" targeted at the cities of Khamis Mushait and Jazan, SPA reported.
Reuters reported that Houthis then said that they had fired nine drones at "sensitive targets" in Riyadh and six drones at military sites in the cities of Abha and Khamis Mushait.
Houthi rebels overthrew Yemen's government in 2015, igniting a civil war and a devastating humanitarian crisis.
The missile came after an Israeli ship in the Gulf of Oman suffered an explosion earlier this week, with Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz saying that his "initial assessment" was that Iran was responsible.
