North Korea has up to 200 mobile missile launchers, twice as many as experts here had estimated, a Pentagon report claims.
According to a U.S. Defense Department status report to the Senate on May 2, the North has up to 100 mobile launchers that can fire KN-02 and Scud missiles with ranges between 120 and 500 km.
The report claims the North has another 100 mobile launchers that can fire medium-range missiles with a reach between 1,300 and 4,000 km.
South Korea estimated in its 2012 Defense White Paper that North Korea has only around 100 mobile missile launchers.
A government official here explained the discrepancy between the two estimates by saying mobile missile launchers "are frequently on the move," which makes it difficult to determine the exact numbers.
"We do not have any information suggesting a surge in the number of North Korea's mobile missile launchers," he added.
But if the numbers are as high as the U.S. report claims, a pre-emptive strike on all of the North's missiles through the so-called kill chain -- the process of detecting, identifying and intercepting missiles -- would seem impossible.
Only seven North Korean mobile missile launchers were spotted moving recently, but South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials often lost track of them because it is impossible to watch them around the clock as satellites circle the earth.
South Korea and the U.S. hope to establish a 30-minute kill chain by 2015, but the numbers cast serious doubts on that objective.
The Chosun Ilbo
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