"Both these new land and sea-based systems appreciably expand the ballistic missile threat presented by the DPRK," a report in Jane's Defence Weekly said, using the official name for the country, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The version of the missile capable of being launched from submarines or ships "is potentially the most threatening", Janes's said.

"It would fundamentally alter the missile threat posed by the DPRK and could finally provide its leadership with something that it has long sought to obtain -- the ability to directly threaten the continental US."

Information about North Korea's military capabilities in invariably sketchy given the ultra-secretive nature of its hardline communist regime, ruled for the past half-century by father-and-son dictators Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il.

However the country is known to possess ballistic missile technology. In August 1998, Pyongyang stunned the world by test-launching a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan, officially claiming it was a satellite launch.

Four years later the United States said North Korea had acknowledged it was developing nuclear weapons, prompting a series of as-yet unsuccessful talks involving Washington as well as China, South Korea, Russia and Japan.

According to Jane's Defence Weekly, North Korea is working on a pair of missile systems based on Russian technology, completely different to the Taepodong-1 and its mooted successor, the Taepodong-2, reportedly being tested.

The new systems are based on the defunct Soviet R-27 submarine-launched ballistic missile, known to NATO at the time as the SS-N-6, Jane's said.

The land-based model has an estimated range of 2,500 to 4,000 kilometres (1,560 to 2,500 miles), bringing into range all of East Asia, as well as Hawaii and US military bases on the Pacific islands of Okinawa and Guam.

The sea-launched model could be fired at least 2,500 kilometres, the article said.

The origin of the new missiles is believed to be shown by an incident in 1992 when specialists from the Makeyev Design Bureau in Chelyabinsk, Russia, which developed the R-27, were detained as they tried to leave for North Korea.

"Reports indicate that other groups of missile specialists successfully travelled to the DPRK," Jane's said.

Then in 1993, the North Korean navy bought 12 decommissioned Russian submarines, ostensibly for scrap metal.

Some of these had been equipped to ballistic missiles, and although all missiles and firing systems had been removed the submarines still had "significant elements" of launch systems, such as stabilisation mechanisms.

"This technology, in combination with the R-27 design, provided the Korean People's Navy with elements crucial to the subsequent development of a submarine or ship-mounted ballistic missile system," the report said.

It was unknown if Pyongyang had attempted to sell this system to any other countries, Jane's added.

However Iran "would appear to be the ideal customer for both the land and sea-based versions, given its requirement for a system capable of striking Israel from the security of its own territory".

WAR.WIRE