North Korea has developed hundreds of drones

SEOUL, Jan. 20 (UPI) — North Korea has a fleet of 300 drones and its reconnaissance capabilities have been under development since the 1990s, a US analyst said.

Joseph S. Bermudez, a former Defense Department analyst, wrote Tuesday about 38 NorthA John Hopkins Academic site dedicated to North Korean issues, that Pyongyang has developed at least seven types of unmanned aerial vehicles, using technology from China, Russia and the Middle East.

North Korea's interest in drones began gaining traction more than two decades ago, but Pyongyang's interest in drones began as early as 1970, when U.S. drones from South Korea's Osan Air Base began flying 268 missions along the coast, Bermudez wrote.

South Korea's policies also had an influence on North Korea's decisions to develop drones, according to the analyst.

In 1988, when Seoul's Defense Ministry announced it was seeking funding to build a fleet of surveillance drones, North Korea acquired its first drones from China, Bermudez said.

North Korea's drone fleet grew in the 1990s when Syria allowed North Korea access to its fleet, including a Russian DR-3 Reys, a high-speed, low-altitude system with a range of 37 to 44 miles.

Drones are used in espionage missions that infiltrate South Korean airspace. In March 2014, Bermudez wrote, a North Korean drone crashed near the border town of Paju, but before that it had taken 200 photographs of key South Korean military installations, as well as the presidential Blue House.

Pyongyang's drones attracted the attention of the South Korean military in August, when North Korea flew several drones over the demilitarized zone during North-South negotiations. North Korea too flew a drone across the DMZ last Wednesday, prompting South Korean soldiers to fire warning shots at the intruding plane.

South Korea's Herald Business newspaper reported that Seoul installed new radars in 2015 to detect drones in response to recent North Korean incursions into South Korean airspace.