North Korea has tested a cluster-bomb warhead designed for its tactical ballistic missiles and says it will make four types of the weapon available to its military units before the end of the year, its state news agency reported on Sunday.
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the country’s Missile Administration carried out the test on Saturday, 31 October, to assess how well the warhead adapts to combat use and how much destructive power it delivers. The test was overseen by General Kim Jong-sik, a member of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers’ Party and a senior party official. Leader Kim Jong Un was not reported to have attended.
According to KCNA, research institutes under the Missile Administration concluded that the warhead, called the “Standard Type 2”, could turn a target area of 12 to 13 hectares “into ashes” at its highest density of submunitions. The agency quoted the Missile Administration’s director as saying the warheads fall into four categories, depending on their purpose, and that all of them would be available for units to select according to their mission and target before the year is out.
South Korea’s military confirmed that a launch had taken place, saying on Sunday that it had detected a missile fired from the Chongju area in North Pyongan province towards the West Sea, known internationally as the Yellow Sea, on Saturday. Seoul said South Korea and the United States had tracked related movements before the launch. The military had not announced the launch on the day itself, and Japan’s defence ministry also made no announcement, which Yonhap news agency noted suggested the missile was flown at a reduced range and altitude for a warhead test.
An analyst in Seoul, Shin Jong-woo of the Korea Defense and Security Forum, assessed from photographs released by KCNA that the missile appeared to belong to the Hwasong-11 family of short-range ballistic missiles, sometimes described as North Korea’s version of the US ATACMS system. KCNA itself did not name the missile used, give its flight distance, or state the launch time or site. The identification therefore rests on photographic analysis, not on an official North Korean statement.
The test follows an earlier trial in April, when North Korea said it had tested cluster bombs fitted to a Hwasong-11 Ra tactical ballistic missile, in a launch overseen by Kim Jong Un and his daughter Ju Ae. That launch was described at the time as an evaluation of both a cluster-bomb warhead and a fragmentation-mine warhead.
Cluster munitions scatter many smaller explosive submunitions over a wide area rather than striking a single point, and they are widely criticised because unexploded bomblets can remain dangerous to civilians long after a conflict ends. More than 100 countries have joined a convention banning them, although North Korea, South Korea and the United States are not parties to it.
Note on sourcing: the performance claims in this story — including the size of the area the warhead is said to devastate and the plan to field four warhead types by the end of the year — rest solely on North Korea’s own state media reporting and have not been independently verified. No outside assessment of the test’s results has been published.
Sources: Korea JoongAng Daily (Yonhap), “North Korea tests cluster bomb warhead for tactical ballistic missiles”, 1 November 2026, https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/korea/north-korea-tests-ballistic-missiles-mounted-with-cluster-bombs/12948414 ; Seoul Economic Daily (Yonhap), “North Korea tests cluster warhead it says can flatten 18 soccer fields”, 1 November 2026, https://en.sedaily.com/politics/2026/11/01/north-korea-tests-cluster-warhead-it-says-can-flatten-18
