North Korea Claims Game-Changing New Weapon

North Korean state media on Thursday said the country's top missile scientists verified a new multi-warhead delivery system that could significantly complicate U.S. and allied defense planning against Kim Jong Un's regime.

Senior officials with North Korea's ruling Workers' Party oversaw the "separation and guidance control test of individual mobile warheads" in an assessment aimed at securing the nation's multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle, or MIRV, capability, the official Korean Central News Agency said of the previous day's launch event.

MIRVs, first developed by the United States, allow a single intercontinental ballistic missile to release multiple nuclear-armed, hypersonic warheads at different speeds, delivering the weapon's payload at separate ground targets to overwhelm air defense systems.

Three photographs carried by KCNA reportedly showed multiple warheads and later a decoy separating from an intermediate-range ballistic missile, which neighboring South Korea and Japan both assessed was launched from the area around Pyongyang.

"The separated mobile warheads were guided correctly to the three coordinate targets," KCNA said following the regime's first test fire in a month, calling the acquisition of MIRV capability "a top priority" of the party.

In Seoul, however, the South Korean military dismissed the North's claim of a successful test, doubling down on its earlier assessment that the hypersonic missile blew up mid-flight and scattered debris into the two Koreas' eastern seas.

Lee Sung Joon, a spokesperson for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on Thursday the North's missile exploded shortly after liftoff, whereas MIRVs typically release warheads during descent.

This image released on June 27 by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency shows a missile test in which Pyongyang said multiple warheads were deployed from a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle, or MIRV, ballistic missile. KCNA

This image released on June 27 by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency shows a missile test in which Pyongyang said a decoy warhead was deployed from a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle, or MIRV, ballistic missile. KCNA

Colin Zwirko of the specialist publication NK News said the previous day that the test likely took place east of Kim's mansion in Pyongyang, the same site where North Korea fired a salvo of missiles on April 22 from multiple launch rocket systems.

KCNA's decision not to publish photos of the warheads striking their targets, and Kim's apparent absence from the event, both raised questions, he said.

If proven, however, it would be North Korea's first known MIRV test and another milestone on Kim's 2021 wish list of sophisticated weaponry, alongside spy satellites, solid-fuel ICBMs and submarine-launched nuclear missiles.

It also appeared to be another instance of Pyongyang ignoring U.N. Security Council resolutions prohibiting its development of ballistic technologies.

North Korea's embassy in Beijing did not reply to multiple emails seeking comment.

The U.S. Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nuclear-weapons states are racing to perfect hypersonic strategic technologies such as MIRV delivery systems, which are designed to evade interception and therefore increase the operator's strike credibility.

In March, India successfully tested a MIRV missile, the Agni-5, which it said launched multiple warheads some 2,000 miles away, about half its stated operational range.

The Agni-5 was built with one eye on China, its neighbor to the north, with the missile placing most of the Chinese mainland within reach.

North Korea's missile test appeared to be a preemptive response to three-day trilateral military drills beginning Thursday between the U.S., South Korea and Japan.

The Hawaii-based U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the multi-domain exercise dubbed Freedom Edge will "promote trilateral interoperability and protect freedom for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, including the Korean Peninsula."

"The exercise will focus on cooperative Ballistic Missile Defense, Air Defense, Anti-Submarine Warfare, Search and Rescue, Maritime Interdiction, and Defensive Cyber training," the statement said.

Also on Thursday, Seoul said it would resume loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts near the Korean Demilitarized Zone if Pyongyang continued to send trash-carrying balloons across the border, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

About 180 waste balloons from North Korea—some carrying sewage—fell on the South's territory late on Wednesday for the third consecutive day, bringing the total since late May to more than 2,000.

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