North's Kim expresses 'great satisfaction' in tests of advanced guided missile systems

North Korea confirmed Wednesday it had test-fired two new weapons systems — a lightweight multipurpose missile launch system and multiple AI-guided tactical cruise missiles. 

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) on the previous day had detected multiple projectiles, including close-range ballistic missiles and artillery rockets, launched from the Jongju area of North Pyongan Province toward the Yellow Sea. 

The test was "part of the plan for modernizing the artillery and missile armed forces to attain the five-year goal for national defense development," a report by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. It "analyzed and estimated the power of the special mission warhead of tactical ballistic missile, the reliability of the 240 millimeter controlled artillery rocket with expanded firing range which employed an ultraprecision autonomous navigation system, and the AI-guided hit accuracy of tactical cruise missile."

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, present at the test site, reportedly expressed "great satisfaction" over the test, calling it "a clear signal of military advancement and growing combat capability." 

He specifically praised the tactical cruise missile, which the report said will be deployed to long-range artillery units positioned near the southern border.

The report described the missile as a powerful weapon that combines a precision autonomous navigation system with terrain mapping and AI-assisted targeting, capable of striking targets at a range of 100 kilometers (62 miles) with high precision using a combined gliding-and-propulsion flight method. 

A range of 100 kilometers puts Seoul as well as parts of Gyeonggi and Incheon within reach. 

Kim reaffirmed that "tests of major weapon systems are a clear signal of upgrading our military force and an event of showing great technical progress in the strengthening of our army's combat power," the KCNA reported. 

"It is our top priority policy direction for the building of armed forces to build the most modern and powerful artillery force."

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY KIM EUN-BIN. [[email protected]]