North Korea Test-Fires Missiles with Cluster Warheads: KCNA

Seoul, April 20 (Jiji Press)–North Korea test-fired tactical ballistic missiles Sunday to evaluate the power of warheads carrying cluster bombs, the country’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Monday. The test-firing by North Korea’s Missile Administration was supervised by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to the report. North Korea conducted a similar test earlier this month. According to the KCNA, the five missiles were fired toward a target around an island about 136 kilometers away and hit an area of about 13 hectares with extremely high-density attacks. The South Korean military said Sunday that North Korea fired several short-range ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan from an area around Shipo in the east of the country the same day. North Korea also carried out a test of a fragmentation mine warhead. According to South Korean experts, fragmentation mines function like landmines, with fragments that scatter upon impact, not exploding immediately. The report quoted Kim as saying that “the development and introduction of different cluster bomb warheads can meet the operational demand” of the North Korean army and that “it is of weighty significance in military actions to boost the high-density striking capability to quell a specific target area.” North Korea has spent five years developing the missile warheads. Pyongyang has not joined the Oslo Convention, which prohibits the production and use of cluster munitions, due to their inhumane nature. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]