|
North Korea has developed an upgraded Scud missile, dubbed the Scud-ER, with an estimated range of 600 - 1,000 kilometers. The missiles have a longer range and are more accurate than existing Scud missiles.
A government source said Monday that U.S. spy satellites discovered the new Scuds one or two years ago, and were currently trying to determine whether they have been deployed. The missiles have longer ranges than North Korea's existing arsenal of 600 Scud B (300km) and Scud C (500km) missiles.
They are also more accurate. The source said the missiles are capable of striking targets in nearly all of South Korea even from bases in rear areas of the North.
Accuracy has always been the weak point of existing Scud missiles. Rumors of the upgraded Scuds E-R (for "extended range") spread among some specialists in the latter half of the 1990s, but their existence was never confirmed.
But the range of the new Scuds is considerably shorter than that of Pyongyang¡¯s arsenal of Rodong missiles (1,300km) and newly designed intermediate-range ballistic missiles (3,000 - 4,000km), which have already been deployed; its Taepodong-1 missile (2,500km), which was test-fired in 1998 but never deployed; and the Taepodong-2 missile (6,700km), which is currently under development. However, they are reportedly all aimed at Japan and the U.S. rather than South Korea.
The Scud upgrades, by contrast, were designed with South Korea in mind, and intelligence authorities believe they represent a greater threat than the long-range missiles.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
