SEOUL: North Korea has unveiled a new “suicide drone”, state media said Monday, with leader Kim Jong Un overseeing a performance test of the weapons, which experts said could have come from Russia. Wearing a cream baker boy hat, Kim was shown beaming as he watched, aided by high-powered binoculars, as the drones blew up targets, images in state media showed.

Kim said that “it is necessary to develop and produce more suicide drones”, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, in addition to “strategic reconnaissance and multi-purpose attack drones”. Suicide drones are explosive-carrying unmanned drones designed to be deliberately crashed into enemy targets, effectively acting as guided missiles.

The nuclear-armed North’s growing drone fleet will “be used within different striking ranges to attack any enemy targets on the ground and in the sea”, KCNA said.

All the drones North Korea tested on August 24 “correctly identified and destroyed the designated targets after flying along different preset routes”, it added.