North Korea Test Launches Underwater Ballistic Missile

North Korea has test-fired a submarine-based ballistic missile, which would allow North Korea to deploy projectiles far beyond the Korean peninsula.

The country’s leader Kim Jong-un said "a strategic weapon capable of wiping out hostile forces in any waters", the North's official news agency KCNA reported Saturday.

The test was carried out by a submarine that dived to launch depth on the sounding of a combat alarm.

Earlier, satellite images had shown the conning tower of a new North Korean submarine, the US analysts said appeared to house one or two vertical launch tubes for either ballistic or cruise missiles.

"After a while, the ballistic missile soared into the sky from underwater," Kim said that the test as an "eye-opening success" on a par with North Korea's successful launch of a satellite into orbit in 2012.

Mr Kim said that the underwater test shows that the North Korean military now possessed a "world-level strategic weapon capable of striking and wiping out in any waters the hostile forces infringing upon [North] Korea's sovereignty and dignity".

Even though, Experts know that the North has been advancing in an active ballistic missile development program, it is still unclear how much it has progressed. There are also opinions on if the North is capable to miniaturise a nuclear device that would fit onto a delivery missile, meanwhile some have expressed doubt if the state has the financial and technical resources to build an operational system.

The North has yet to conduct a test showing it has mastered the re-entry technology required for an effective intercontinental ballistic missile.

Intelligence reports were cited by South Korean Defence Ministry last September that Pyongyang was understood to be developing a vertical missile launch tube for submarine use.

The North's 3,000-tonne Golf-class submarine could be modified to fire medium-range ballistic missiles, officials added.