North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his teenage daughter fired guns during an inspection of a light munitions factory, state media photographs showed Thursday, as he pushes to modernize conventional forces after years of focusing on nuclear weapons.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Kim visited a factory that produces pistols and other light weapons a day earlier and inspected a new pistol that recently went into production.

After testing the gun at a shooting range, Kim rated it “excellent,” the agency said. The agency did not mention the presence of Kim’s daughter in its text report, but her photographs showed her firing a gun alongside senior military officers.

Kim said the factory was crucial to supplying pistols and other light weapons to military and security forces, and urged expanded capacity and more modern production lines, KCNA said.

Since her first public appearance at a long-range missile test in November 2022, Kim’s daughter, believed to be called Kim Ju Ae and about 13 years old, has accompanied her father to an increasing number of events, including military exhibitions, factory openings and a September trip to Beijing, where Kim Jong Un held his first summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in six years.

His increasingly high-profile public appearances have led South Korean officials and intelligence experts to assess that Kim Jong Un It’s probably grooming her as a future leader. extend the family dynasty to a fourth generation.

They may also indicate that “the regime is trying to cultivate the image of a strong and formidable woman,” Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert and faculty member at South Korea’s Kyungnam University, told News, adding: “The shooting scene clearly serves to signal that she is cultivating the attributes of a military leader.”

Last month, state media showed Kim’s daughter testing a sniper rifle while her father presented the weapons to senior officials after a ruling party congress where he laid out his main political and military goals for the next five years.

The visit to the gun factory followed an inspection Tuesday in which Kim and his daughter witnessed the test launch of what state media described as nuclear-capable cruise missiles from a naval destroyer, as Kim called for accelerating his navy’s nuclear arming.

North Korea released these latest images about a week after its state media shared a series of Unusually candid photos of Kim.including some that showed him spending the afternoon petting puppies with his daughter, sister Yo Jung, and wife Ri Sul Ju. The images of the exit were taken from a video, which also appeared on the Internet. A collection of them published by state media suggested that the video was filmed in a pet store around February 17.

Kim and her daughter, who wore a matching black outfit in the photos and video, were also seen browsing a music store filled with instruments in that collection of images. His behavior in them marked a departure from the usual depictions of Kim in state propaganda as a stern commander.