The North Korea Army has reported this Tuesday a new test with a "dispersal warhead of a strategic cruise missile" intended to check both its destructive power and its flight trajectory in a "vertical attack." According to the military authorities, this type of payload would have the capacity to "reduce to ashes a target area of between five and six hectares," in a context marked by Pionyang's criticism of a "brutal demonstration of nuclear war" by the United States and South Korea.
The announcement was made by the same general who made those accusations on Monday, Kim Jong Sik, who detailed that the North Korean forces carried out that same day "a series of tests to evaluate the power of a dispersal warhead of a strategic cruise missile and its flight characteristics for a vertical attack," according to the state agency KCNA.
After the test, the North Korean Army Missile Administration has specified that the dispersal warhead installed in the missile is "medium-sized" and has underlined that the "terminal maneuverability of the cruise missile" used during the tests has been improved.
The head of the military body, Jang Chang Ha, has underlined that "it is more urgent than ever" for Pionyang to advance in the development of its weapons systems with the aim of "safeguarding the country's security and deterring all kinds of threats." "These tests constitute a fundamental test and also demonstrate real combat capability," he has pointed out, while, according to KCNA itself, the Missile Administration maintains that these tests are part of the "usual scientific research work" aimed at strengthening the power of North Korean combat systems.
The statement was released less than a day after General Kim Jong Sik lashed out against the joint 'Iron Mace' maneuvers — exercises aimed at practicing the integration of US nuclear forces with South Korean conventional troops —, calling them a "brutal demonstration of nuclear war" by Seoul and Washington. In addition, he described them as the "clearest example that the White House's ambition" to "crush Pionyang with nuclear weapons" "remains intact and with a level of danger that increases day by day."
These new tests are added to the trials carried out on Saturday with a cluster bomb also adaptable to a ballistic missile and which, as the same military command highlighted, would be "capable of reducing to ashes a target area of twelve to thirteen hectares with its highest density power".