South Korea's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, believes North Korean leader Kim Jong Un became a father for the third time earlier this year.
In a briefing to South Korea's parliament Monday, NIS officials said they thought Kim's wife, Ri Sol-ju, gave birth in February, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
The NIS briefing came the day before another escalation in regional tensions, with North Korea launching a missile through Japanese airspace on Tuesday morning local time.
There was no information on the name or the sex of the baby, so it remains unknown whether Kim has a son who would continue his family's dynasty, which is now in its third generation.
Kim is the third in a familial line of North Korean leaders stretching back to his grandfather Kim Il Sung, who founded the state in 1948 and led the invasion of South Korea in 1950, sparking the Korean War.
Kim and his wife have been married for eight years and have two other children, born in 2010 and 2013, according to a report from Chosun Ilbo.
Kim is extremely secretive about his family, but it is believed that his second child was a girl, according to information from Dennis Rodman, the former NBA star who is friendly with Kim.
Chosun Ilbo reported there was speculation about a possible pregnancy last year after Ri stopped appearing in public.
The arrival of the third child in February, as reported by South Korean intelligence, would have come at the start of a continuing escalation of regional tensions through the North's missile program. The first of its new medium-range ballistic missiles was tested in February, and that was followed by the launch of four ballistic missiles in March. These were precursors to the successful test of North Korea’s first intercontinental ballistic missile in July.
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