Pyongyang faked missile test footage: US experts

Pyongyang faked missile test footage: US experts

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 07:06 PM IST
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Seoul : North Korea’s ‘successful’ submarine-launched ballistic missile test last month was, in fact, an explosive failure that was not even launched from a submarine, separate expert analyses concluded.

  The North released a video of the purported December 21 test on Saturday, showing leader Kim Jong-Un — dressed in a winter coat and fedora hat — looking on as a missile was launched vertically from underwater and ignited in mid air.

The video then cut to a rocket flying through the clouds.  The footage was almost immediately dismissed as a fake — digitally manipulated footage of the actual launch and spliced footage from other missile tests to give the impression of a successful outcome. Analysts at the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies said the missile almost certainly blew up after a successful pop-up.

“Although (it) appears to eject successfully…  we think that a catastrophic failure occurred at ignition,” said Catherine Dill, a research associate at the centre. North Korea “manipulated the footage in an attempt to obscure this result, but one clip plays for two frames too long. The rocket appears to explode,” Dill said.

The outside world has been paying close attention to the North’s efforts to acquire a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) capability which, if fully developed, would take its nuclear strike threat to a new level, allowing deployment far beyond the Korean peninsula and the potential to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.

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