North Korea Releases Video Showing Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Test

North Korea has released a video showing a successful submarine launched ballistic missile test carried out last month.

The 54-minute video telecast on the state-run Korean Central Television included a report that said, the missile launch was done in December by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who in the video is seen standing viewing a missile being shot up from underneath the sea. The missile blasts off after reaching a certain point.

Following a failed test earlier in November 2015 that nearly sank the submarine which fired the missile, the December test was a success, and the missile test was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon Monday.

According to US officials cited by the news daily, the launch was carried out near Sinpo on the east coast of North Korea. DPRK could deploy a new submarine missile with a nuclear warhead within a year.

US has identified the new missile as KN-11 ejecting from underwater and reaching about 130 feet in the air and is followed by engine igniting and flying into a cloud covered sky. The missile

The video shows a missile the Pentagon calls the KN-11 ejecting from underwater and reaching about 130 feet in the air, followed by its engine igniting and flying into a cloud-covered sky. Later in the video, the missile is shown from a distance as it clears the clouds and flies over the sea.

A South Korean intelligence official told the Yonhap news agency that the North has not completed development of the new submarine-launched missile.

“The country seems to be in the stage of the ejection testing, but not in the completion stage,” Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed South Korean intelligence official as saying.

US intelligence agencies estimate that the nuclear test produced a small-yield blast, and could be evidence of the development of a two-stage thermonuclear device.

North Korea hailed the test as a breakthrough in its effort to build a nuclear arsenal against what it regards as hostile foreign forces.

North Korea is believed to be capable of deploying a small nuclear warhead on a missile and has several types of missiles capable of delivering such warheads.

The long-range system is called the Taepodong. In addition to the launch-pad based Taepodong, North Korea has a small number of road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, designated as KN-08 missiles by the Pentagon.

Officials have said the KN-08 has been extensively tested in all aspects of its development, except flight testing.

The KN-11, the submarine-missile, is believed to be based on a SS-N-6 SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile) obtained covertly from Russia and reverse-engineered into a missile the North Koreans call the Musudan.