North Korea has released video footage of a purportedly new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test, three days after it claimed it had…

North Korea has released video footage of a purportedly new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test, three days after it claimed it had successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb

But South Korean media suggested that the footage broadcast by state Korean Central TV late on Friday was an edited compilation of the North’s third SLBM test, conducted last month in the Sea of Japan, and a different ballistic missile test from 2014

The undated footage shows leader Kim Jong Un, on board a military vessel in a winter coat and a fedora hat, looking on as a missile is launched vertically from underwater and ignites in mid-air. The video then cuts to a rocket flying through the clouds, suggesting that the missile was able to reach such altitudes

But South Korean media said the image of a rocket rising through the clouds was, in fact, taken from footage of a Scud missile test broadcast in 2014

North Korea first announced in May last year that it had conducted a successful SLBM test, a claim accompanied by pictures of Mr Kim pointing at the missile as it blasted out of the water at a 45- degree angle

A second SLBM test was carried out off the south-eastern port of Wonsan last November, but this was apparently a failure as only debris from its casing was seen in the sea and no traces of the flight were detected

South Korean military officials say the North is continuing to actively pursue the development of SLBMs, which would take its nuclear threat to a new level