S. Korea considering reveal of Hyunmoo-5 as ‘warning to N. Korea’

As North Korea continues indiscriminate provocations in an obvious violation of the September 19 inter-Korean military agreement, the South Korean military is considering the official reveal of the test launch footage of Hyunmoo-5, a high-power ballistic missile carrying one of the heaviest warheads in the world.

If North Korea’s arms provocations, such as the threat of using tactical nukes, the South Korean military may officially reveal the footage of the ‘monster missile,’ which can annihilate the North Korean leadership with just one missile. Except for a blurred 8-second video revealed on the celebratory event of Armed Forces Day on October 1, there hasn’t been any official footage of Hyunmoo-5.

According to The Dong-A Ilbo’s research as of Sunday, the South Korean military is reviewing the release of official footage of Hyunmoo-5’s test launch if the North’s comprehensive and beyond-the-limit provocations continue.

It is to show the South Korean military’s retaliation capability of destroying the center of the North’s provocations with a comparable ‘bunker buster’ as soon as the North Korean leadership presses a button to launch missiles mounted with tactical nukes targeting the South. Hyunmoo-5, which can carry a warhead weighing up to eight tons, can destroy a target 100 meters or deeper under the ground. Hyunmoo-5 is more accurate than the North’s nuclear missiles, which allows it to destroy the precise source of provocations.

North Korea claimed that 560 artillery fires in the buffer zones in the East Sea and the Yellow Sea on Friday were the countermeasures against South Korea’s artillery fires. “We launched counter artillery fires as the evidence of our enemy’s artillery fires was found in Cheorwon near our Fifth Army on Thursday and Friday,” said the spokesperson of the General Staff Department of the Korean People's Army on Saturday. “We will take rigorous and overwhelming military responses going forward,” said the spokesperson, forewarning follow-up provocations.


Ji-Sun Choi aurinko@donga.com