South Korea publicly announces plan to set up 'execution team' to execute North Korean leader

It is rare for a government to announce a strategy to assassinate a head of state, but South Korea did so to send a message of deterrence to Pyongyang.

South Korean marines participate in a military exercise on Baegnyeong Island. Photo: Reutes

According to the newspaperNew York Times(US), the last time people knew of a South Korean plot to assassinate a North Korean leader was in the late 1960s. However, that plan did not go according to their calculations.

Specifically, at that time, after North Korean special forces raided the presidential palace in Seoul, South Korea secretly trained rogue elements in prison or vagrants to sneak into North Korea, seeking to assassinate leader Kim Il Sung.

When the plot failed, the assassins mutinied. They killed their trainers and made their way back to Seoul, where they committed suicide. For decades, the story of this rebellion was kept secret.

And now, as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, grandson of leader Kim Il Sung, accelerates missile development programs, South Korea is once again raising the story of assassinating the North Korean leader.

A day after North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young Moo told parliament in Seoul that a special forces brigade, which defense officials have called a "decapitation squad," will be established by the end of this year.

This army, of course, was not officially tasked with literally executing North Korea's leaders, but it was clearly a threatening message to its neighbor that South Korea wanted to send out most clearly.

Accordingly, South Korean defense officials said the special forces can conduct cross-border raids using helicopters and transport planes capable of infiltrating North Korea at night.

It is rare for a government to publicly announce a strategy to assassinate a head of state, but South Korea wants North Korea to be more cautious and reserved about the dire consequences it could face if it continues to develop its nuclear arsenal.

In parallel with that process, South Korea also wants to increase its more aggressive position in urging North Korea to accept President Moon Jae In's proposal for negotiations.

The South Korean government's moves have raised suspicions that South Korea and the United States, its most important ally, have prepared basic plans to assassinate or neutralize leader Kim Jong Un and his senior aides before they can launch an attack.

Although Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has said the United States is not seeking regime change in North Korea, and South Korea has consistently asserted that its new military tactics are aimed solely at countering threats from Pyongyang, no one can rule out the possibility that the strike capabilities the two forces are building could very well be used in a preemptive strike.

According to Tuoi Tre