North Korea tests submarine-launched missile, Seoul confirms

The South Korean and U.S. militaries launched their biggest joint military exercises in years as North Korea said it conducted submarine-launched cruise missile tests in apparent protest of the drills it views as an invasion rehearsal

North Korea said Monday it has conducted submarine-launched cruise missile tests, days after its leader Kim Jong Un ordered his troops to be ready to repel its rivals’ “frantic war preparation moves.”

The test on Sunday came a day before the U.S. and South Korean militaries begin large-scale joint military drills that North Korea views as a rehearsal for invasion.

North Korea's official news outlet, the Korean Central News Agency, said Monday that the missile launches showed the North's resolve to respond with “overwhelming powerful forces” to the intensifying military maneuvers by the “U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces.”

KCNA also implied that the North aims to arm the cruise missiles tested with nuclear warheads.

It said the missiles flew for more than two hours, drawing figure-eight-shaped patterns in waters off the country’s eastern coast, and hit targets 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away. The missiles were fired from the 8.24 Yongung ship, KCNA said, referencing a submarine that North Korea has used to conduct all its known submarine-launched ballistic missile tests since 2016.

Sunday's actions were the North’s first underwater-launched missile tests since the country test-fired a weapon from a silo under an inland reservoir last October. Last May, the country test-launched a short-range ballistic missile from the same vessel.

North Korea's command of submarine-launched missile systems would make it harder for adversaries to detect launches in advance and provide the North with retaliatory attack capability. Experts say it would take years, extensive resources, and major technological improvements for the heavily sanctioned nation to build several submarines that could travel quietly in seas and reliably execute strikes.