‘North Korea could hit San Diego with ICBM within two years’, US monitoring group says
South Korea has disputed North Korea’s claim to have an ICBM that can strike the US mainland, saying Kim’s regime may not yet have re-entry capability for such projectiles
North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is “likely” to be able to deliver a 500kg warhead to San Diego within two years, a US monitoring group said on Tuesday, after its launch sparked global alarm last week.
The isolated, nuclear-armed state’s first successful ICBM test was described by leader Kim Jong-un as a gift to “American bastards”.
The Hwasong-14 missile is currently estimated to have a range of 7,000-8,000km – enough to reach Alaska or Hawaii – aerospace engineer John Schilling wrote on the well-respected 38 North website, a monitoring project linked to Johns Hopkins university.
The North Koreans won’t be able to achieve this performance tomorrow, but they likely will eventually
At present it would be “lucky to hit even a city-sized target”, he said, citing limits to its re-entry technology.
