A think tank in Washington, D.C., has uncovered what it believes to be a heavily fortified, covert North Korean military base near the Chinese border that houses the nation’s latest intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report released Wednesday that it identified a secret base near the village of Sinpung-dong, approximately 17 miles from the Chinese border, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The CSIS report stated it is one of approximately 20 ballistic missile bases, maintenance, support, missile storage, and warhead storage facilities which North Korea has never declared. The report is the first in-depth open-source study confirming the base. What distinguishes the Sinpung-dong base from the others is the absence of adjacent launchpads or nearby air-defense systems.
“Preliminary analysis suggests that the base likely houses a brigade-sized unit equipped with a total of 6-9 nuclear capable Hwasong-15 or -18 intercontinental ballistic missiles, or an as yet unknown ICBM, and their transporter-erector-launchers or mobile-erector-launchers,” the report stated. “These missiles pose a potential nuclear threat to East Asia and the continental United States.”
According to the CSIS, the Sinpung-dong base could be designed to accommodate mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles using solid fuel — a weapons system that poses a particular threat to countries as far away as the U.S, the Journal reported. Such types of ICBMs can be fired from massive trucks that can move around to evade detection. The fact that they contain solid-propellant engines means the missiles can be largely prefueled and kept out of sight, ready to go in case of a conflict.
“It’s not good news at all,” Victor D. Cha, a co-author of the CSIS report and a National Security Council official in the George W. Bush administration, told the Journal. “North Korea wouldn’t need a lot of time to fire these things, making it hard to take them out before they launch.”
The CSIS said that construction continues on the site to augment its facilities.
North Korea has assembled about 50 nuclear warheads, with enough fissile material to produce up to 40 more warheads, the Journal reported, citing an annual estimate from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Pyongyang’s impetus to build its network of underground missile bases has only grown in the wake of U.S. strikes in June of three nuclear sites in Iran — facilities that North Korea reportedly helped to build decades ago, the Journal reported. North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un has referred to the country’s nuclear program as a “treasured sword” that helps deter potential attacks and safeguards the nation’s independence.
On Monday, Kim reportedly called for a “rapid expansion” of North Korea’s nuclear arms and criticized the joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises that started the same day.
The Kim regime has positioned more shorter-range firepower closer to the border with South Korea and within range of Japan, the Journal reported. But it has often stored ICBMs in the northwestern part of the country near the Chinese border. The fact that the Sinpung-dong base sits so close to the Chinese border is deliberate, Cha said.
“North Korea puts these missile bases near the Chinese border to make it harder for the U.S. to contemplate taking them out,” he said.
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