The South Korean capital is within range of missile launchers North Korea has said it is preparing to send to the neighbors’ heavily militarized border.
The ballistic missile systems likely have a range of up to 68 miles, putting the 26 million people in the Seoul metropolitan area and Chungcheong Province, south of the capital, within range of the front line.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over the ceremony for 250 ballistic missile systems being handed over to army units earlier this month. North Korean media said Kim had “personally designed” what it characterized as a “new pivotal attack weapon” of North Korean forces.
Joseph Dempsey, a research associate with the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, previously said the 250 systems appeared to be transporter erector launchers for Hwasong-11D launchers, which are believed to be capable of both conventional and nuclear weapons.
“Very large deployments of the Hwasong-11D apparently are intended, especially since each launcher can carry four missiles, and North Korea probably intends to conduct multiple rounds of launches per vehicle,” the Stimson Center think tank analysis website 38 North wrote in May after North Korean media reported on Kim’s visit to a production facility housing about 100 of the launchers.
Korean Central News Agency
However, South Korea’s top spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, on Monday expressed doubt that the North would be able to sufficiently supply the launchers, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
“North Korea has been operating missile and weapons production systems to supply Russia with weapons as part of their military cooperation, so we suspect that they may be difficult to supply (to the launchers),” the agency cited the service as telling lawmakers in the parliamentary intelligence committee.
Missiles in the Hwasong-11 series have likely already been used offensively by Russian forces during their invasion of Ukraine, according to United Nations sanctions monitors earlier this year.
Washington and a number of its allies believe the Kim regime has been supplying Russia with a large number of munitions to replace those run through by Russian troops, including some 5 million shipped in containers, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in June.
Newsweek reached out to the North Korean embassy in China via email for comment.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are at their highest in decades in the wake of multiple ballistic missile tests, tit-for-tat balloon exchanges, the South’s redeployment of loudspeakers along the border, and the suspension of a 2018 inter-Korean military pact meant to lower tensions.
Earlier this year, Pyongyang amended its constitution to label South Korea as its primary foe.
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