A man in Seoul, South Korea, watches a TV news program Thursday about a recent North Korean rocket launch.

A man in Seoul, South Korea, watches a TV news program Thursday about a recent North Korean rocket launch.

U.S. calls mobile North Korean missile a top threat

North Korea continues to develop a mobile intercontinental ballistic missile that “would likely be capable of reaching much of the continental U.S.,” the Pentagon said in a new report to Congress on the secretive regime’s military capabilities.

The KN-08 missile would have an estimated range of more than 3,400 miles, and North Korea already has six “road-mobile” launchers for it, according to the annual report delivered to congressional committees Friday and obtained by Bloomberg News. A mobile missile can be harder to track than a silo-based weapon, although the threat from the KN-08 depends on whether it’s “successfully designed and developed,” the Defense Department cautioned.

The new report, reaffirming a judgment about the KN-08 made by the Pentagon in 2013, arrives amid rising tensions after North Korea conducted a nuclear test on Jan. 6 and launched a long-range rocket on Feb. 7. South Korea and the U.S. have said they will begin talks about deploying an American ballistic missile interceptor system known as Thaad on the Korean peninsula.

In the U.S., the House sent legislation to President Barack Obama on Friday authorizing new sanctions against North Korea. The measure, H.R. 757, would impose sanctions against individuals, companies and foreign governments that contribute to North Korea’s nuclear program and ballistic missile development. It also would penalize those who send luxury goods enjoyed by the regime’s elite or aid in its censorship or human rights abuses.

Other sections of the Defense Department report said that North Korea:

Is pursuing the capability to launch ballistic missiles from submarines, reflecting “the regime’s commitment to diversifying its missile force.”

Views offensive cyber operations as a tool “it can employ with little risk from reprisal attacks, in part because its networks are largely separated from the Internet.”

May consider the use of chemical and biological weapons.

U.S. intelligence on Kim Jong Un’s reclusive regime in North Korea depends in part on watching the country’s annual military parades, an exercise that spawns debate about whether the equipment displayed is functional or mock-ups. Four missiles on KN-08 launchers in an October parade were “noticeably different” from those shown off before, according to the report, which assumes the weapons displayed “are generally representative of missiles that will be fielded.”

“ICBMs are extremely complex systems that require multiple flight tests to identify and correct design or manufacturing defects,” the Pentagon report said. Without flight tests, its current reliability “as a weapon system would be low.”

Pentagon officials outlining a proposed $583 billion defense budget on Tuesday emphasized that North Korea now looms as the prime nuclear threat to the U.S., with the KN-08 viewed as its potentially most dangerous weapon.

Vice Adm. James Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency, revealed that concern about the KN-08, not missiles launched from silos, was behind the decision in 2013 by then- Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to expand a force of 30 missile interceptors based in Alaska and California to 44 by next year.

The expansion is to counter “that very threat,” Syring said at the Pentagon. The U.S. plans to conduct its next missile intercept test in November against a target replicating the expected range and speed of the KN-08, he said.

Raytheon builds the hit-to-kill warhead at the center of the U.S.’s $34 billion ground-based missile defense network, which is managed by Boeing. The system successfully intercepted a dummy warhead in June 2014 after two high-profile failures in 2010.

Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester, said in his latest annual assessment of major weapons that despite past setbacks, the missile defense system has demonstrated a “limited capability to defend the U.S. homeland from small numbers of intermediate-range or intercontinental ballistic missile threats launched from North Korea or Iran.”

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

The rezoned property, seen here from the Hillside Vista luxury development, is surrounded on two sides by modern neighborhoods Monday, March 25, 2024, in Lake Stevens, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Despite petition, Lake Stevens OKs rezone for new 96-home development

The change faced resistance from some residents, who worried about the effects of more density in the neighborhood.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.