With North Korea’s state media keeping mum, the country’s latest missile test was likely to have failed due to an in-flight malfunction, news reports said Thursday, citing US defense officials.

The reports also disputed the South Korean and US militaries’ initial assessment, saying the tested missile was an extended-range Scud, not a KN-15 intermediate-range ballistic missile, also known as the Pukguksong-2, which the North launched for the first time in February.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff declined to verify the reports, saying further analysis is needed.

“We have already explained to you about the joint analysis between South Korea and the US. We don’t have any further comments. Thorough analysis is needed for more accurate information,” Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told reporters.

An unidentified US defense official told AFP that the missile was a Scud and it suffered an in-flight failure before crashing into the East Sea. Citing an unidentified intelligence official, Fox News also reported that the missile did not go as far as intended, saying it did not reach Japanese waters and may have “pinwheeled in flight.” The media outlet also quoted defense officials as saying the missile was a Scud.

The speculation was further shored up by the unusual silence from Pyongyang’s state-run media, which would otherwise have lauded its new missile test the next day with relatively detailed descriptions on its specifications in its typical rhetoric.

When North Korea conducted its new high-performance rocket engine in March, the official Korean Central News Agency touted it as a “new birth” for its rocket industry and released a photo of its leader Kim Jong-un giving a piggyback to a midlevel military officer.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s military has successfully test-launched a new 800-kilometer range ballistic missile that can reach anywhere in North Korea as a strong deterrence against the regime’s nuclear and missile threat, defense sources said Thursday.

The military recently conducted a successful test-launching of a Hyunmoo-type ballistic missile with a range of 800 km at the Anheung test site of the Agency for Defense Development under the wing of the Defense Ministry, they added.

“As there was a space limit for us to fly the ballistic missile at a maximum range, we intentionally reduced the missile’s flight distance and focused on improving accuracy and other key functions,” the official told Yonhap News Agency.

Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Col. Roh Jae-chun declined to comment on the details of the test, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

The military has been spurring efforts to complete its development and deployment of a ballistic missile with a range of 800 kilometers by the end of this year, since it struck a deal with the US in 2012 to extend the range of its ballistic missiles to 800 km, up from the previous 300 km.

South Korea’s missile inventory includes the Hyunmoo-2A ballistic missile, with a range of more than 300 km, and the Hyunmoo-2B that can fly over 500 km, plus the Hyunmoo-3 cruise missile with a range of 1,000 km.

By Yeo Jun-suk (jasonyeo@heraldcorp.com)