North Korea announces it has developed a powerful H-bomb that can fit in missile warhead
Photos show Kim Jong-un with what is claimed to be a powerful thermonuclear bomb that can be loaded in Pyongyang’s new intercontinental ballistic missile
North Korea has developed a hydrogen bomb which can be loaded into the country’s new intercontinental ballistic missile, the official Korean Central News Agency claimed Sunday.
Questions remain over whether nuclear-armed Pyongyang has successfully miniaturised its weapons, and whether it has a working H-bomb, but KCNA said that leader Kim Jong-un had inspected such a device at the Nuclear Weapons Institute.
It was a “thermonuclear weapon with super explosive power made by our own efforts and technology”, KCNA cited Kim him as saying, and “all components of the H-bomb were 100 per cent domestically made”. Hydrogen bombs are much more powerful than Hiroshima-type fission bombs.
Pictures showed Kim examining a metal casing with two bulges. In two of the photos the device seen with what appears to be the hollow nose-cone of a missile.
North Korea triggered a new escalation of tensions in July, when it carried out two successful tests of an ICBM, the Hwasong-14, which apparently brought much of the US mainland within range.