SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile off its east coast Wednesday, but the test ended in a failure, the South Korean military said. It was the fifth consecutive such failure in the North’s attempt to
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile off its east coast Wednesday, but the test ended in a failure, the South Korean military said. It was the fifth consecutive such failure in the North’s attempt to demonstrate a capacity to launch a ballistic missile that would extend its striking range.
The Musudan missile was launched from a site near Wonsan, a port city east of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, at 5:58 a.m. local time Wednesday, the South’s Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
It said the South Korean military considered the test to have been a failure, but it provided no further details.
At 8:05 a.m., North Korea launched another Musudan, the office said, without confirming whether that test also failed.
North Korea has test-fired the Musudan six times since mid-April. But at least five of those tests have failed, with some of the projectiles crashing into the sea or exploding in midair shortly after liftoff, according to U.S. and South Korean officials.
North Korea’s missiles have seldom worked on the first try, but a string of five successive failures is unusual even by the North’s checkered standards. Analysts have attributed the failures to the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un. In his rush to demonstrate an ability to strike U.S. military bases in Guam with nuclear and chemical weapons, Kim was giving his engineers hardly enough time to fix the problems before testing the Musudan again, the analysts said.
The North has successfully tested its short-range Scud and midrange Rodong missiles. The Rodong can reach all of South Korea and most of Japan. The Musudan — a road-mobile missile with a range of more than 2,000 miles, long enough to reach Guam — was first tested April 15.
The failed Musudan tests followed Kim’s repeated calls to his military to conduct more nuclear and missile tests despite international sanctions. The Musudan, unveiled during a military parade in Pyongyang in 2010, is a modified version of a submarine-launched missile from the Soviet military and was designed to carry nuclear warheads, South Korean officials said.
North Korea has repeatedly threatened nuclear strikes against the United States, claiming that it has built nuclear weapons small enough to be mounted on its various ballistic missiles. It conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and has recently claimed success in a series of missile firings and tests related to nuclear weapons.
But the country has never carried out a successful test flight of a long-range missile.
Officials and analysts in the region doubt that the North has built a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. The North’s state-run media has never mentioned its Musudan failures.
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