At least some portion of the Scud missiles fired by the Yemen-based Houthis at Saudi Arabia may have been from North Korea, South Korea’s Yonhap News reported Wednesday, citing an unnamed South Korean intelligence official.

The Yonhap report does note that this official gave no details on how the South Korean intelligence community came to this conclusion, and analysts should be a little skeptical of these claims. Yemen’s strategic forces are fairly small, but likely contain mostly Soviet and Russian missiles. It is possible that some of the missiles in question were North Korean, but it is far from definite.

These Scuds, if they were North Korean, would be Hwasong-5/6s; the DPRK’s domestically produced Scud variants. There is no evidence in open source reports of Yemen receiving any other North Korean produced missiles at any time.

North Korea has sold many of its domestically produced Hwasong missiles to Middle Eastern clients including Yemen, Syria, Libya, the UAE, and Iran, though some of these were exported indirectly or purchased from other states’ inventories.

Reported exports to Yemen, however, are particularly sparse compared to the others. While places like Syria and Iran ended up creating partnerships and domestic production lines, Yemen has no domestic missile production industry and relies on imports for its relatively limited strategic force.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) notes that the DPRK shipped 45 Scud C missiles to Yemen, which would be consistent with Hwasong-6 missile systems. However this number is only an estimate and not a confirmed figure.

What is known is that a North Korean transport ship searched and subsequently released by the Spanish military in 2002, the Sosan, carried 15 Hwasong missiles into Yemen, but no other numbers are reliably reported in the open source. If any additional missiles were imported from North Korea, they have not been reported in the news or in available academic reports. This is in stark contrast to repeated and continuing reporting on the arms relationships between the North Korean government and the Syrian and Iranian militaries.

Readers should remain a bit skeptical in regards to whether or not these missiles are actually North Korean

Readers should remain a bit skeptical in regards to whether or not these missiles are actually North Korean. The Yemeni strategic arsenal has Russian Scuds and Tochkas in it as well, and unless the Saudis, the U.S., or appropriately equipped South Korean radar ships in the area are feeding telemetry or imagery back to Seoul, it would be difficult to confirm the difference between a Scud and a Hwasong. Many sources still report Hwasongs as the same thing as a Scud, further adding confusion to the identification and verification process.

Due to their outward similarity, it is unknown whether the missiles delivered in 2002 were of the Hwasong-5 or more advanced Hwasong-6 variant. However, considering the fact that North Korean sources claim both types have been tested during the 1980s and produced since, either one is possible. The Hwasong-5 and Hwasong-6, both based on the Soviet MAZ-543 Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) also used by the Scud, have a comparable range of up to 500 kilometers and use the same liquid propellant as their ancestor. However, the Hwasong-6 has much improved accuracy; with a Circular Error Probable (CEP) of 50 meters it is roughly on a par with the Soviet Scud-D/R-17.

Reports on the size of the Yemeni government’s missile stockpile are few and far between; news reports from the 1990s indicated that both the North and South Yemeni governments had Scuds and that the North Yemeni arsenal may include Russian Tochkas.

In short, there are only a handful of North Korean missiles that have been reported to be in the Yemeni arsenal, which is fairly limited in size to begin with and has been recently eroded by the Saudi air force. Scuds and Hwasongs, due to their similarities, can be very difficult to differentiate, though hopefully South Korean intelligence services would be getting good telemetry or imagery analysts to confirm their suspicions.

If there was a continued arms relationship between the North Koreans and Yemeni government or even a recent relationship with rebel forces, this could increase the number of North Korean missiles in its arsenal, but little has been reported on such deliveries. Nonetheless, cables recently released by WikiLeaks claim the North Korean Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) was working to procure MAZ-543 parts to be used on Scud TELs from a company in Russia, to be delivered to Yemen through the Ukraine.

Anonymous reports from government intelligence sources have not always led to accurate analyses and conclusions and should be taken more as a lead than as a fact until more verifiable information can be obtained.

Joost Oliemans contributed to this report.

Featured image: Korean Central News Agency

