Since he came to power, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has defied U. N. sanctions and greatly increased testing of missiles and nuclear weapons.
North Korea’s latest attempt to test-fire a missile was a failure, with the rocket exploding seconds after launch , according to American officials monitoring the nation.
But experts have warned against reading too much into the misfire.
Scant information has been released about Wednesday’s incident and it was not the first time North Korean missiles have crashed and burned.
Analysts said it may be a mere bump in the road, and do little to dissuade North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un from his ultimate objective of building a nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States.
«These failures are usually hidden from [North Korea’s] population and are unlikely to deter Kim from pursuing his nuclear ambitions,» according to Fraser Cameron, director of the EU-Asia Center , a think tank based in Belgium.
«Placing large emphasis on single tests is probably unwise,» agreed Karl Dewey, a proliferation editor at Jane’s Intelligence Review , a U. K.-based publication. «Until we know more about the missile type and design objectives, it’s probably too soon to start speculating on how this failure informs this picture. »
Since he came to power five years ago, Kim has defied United Nations sanctions and greatly increased testing of missiles and nuclear weapons.
His latest show of strength came Sunday with a broadcast from a state run KRT news reader warning of a preemptive strike against the U. S. The report said: «Our military declares our stand to mercilessly smash all of our enemy’s moves with our own preemptive special operation and attack, as the wicked plan for the U. S. and South Korean war maniacs’ special operations aiming at our supreme leader is becoming apparent. »
It went on to warn the U. S. over its involvement in South Korea, saying that if troops remain in the country «they should keep in mind that our military will carry out annihilating attack at anytime without any prior warning. »
The warnings come just a week after the failed missile incident, which was the latest in an array of tests by Kim.
«He has had more missile tests in the past four years than all of the previous years combined,» said Thomas Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a research organization based in Washington, D.
