South Korea Reveals Plans To Assassinate Kim Jong-un To Avoid Nuclear War


At a parliamentary meeting Wednesday, South Korean defense minister Han Min-koo was asked if the military has a special forces unit prepared to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

“Yes, we do have such a plan,” Han responded, according to CNN.

“South Korea has a general idea and plan to use precision missile capabilities to target the enemy’s facilities in major areas as well as eliminating the enemy’s leadership,” Han added.

It probably did not come as much of a surprise to many that South Korea has plans to assassinate Kim Jong-un in place. What is surprising is that they publicly announced them.

The announcement came as tensions between North Korea and South Korea have heated up once again in recent months. Kim and other North Koreans are certain to see the South Korean plans to preemptively assassinate him as a provocation.

In March, Pyongyang threatened the U.S. and South Korea with a “preemptive and offensive nuclear strike” in response to planned joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises. The North saw the exercises as “undisguised nuclear war drills aimed to infringe upon the sovereignty,” according to a report from RT.

“If we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes in a moment,” a statement from the North’s official KCNA warned, according to RT.

“The U.S. is working hard to turn the Korean Peninsula into the theater of a war, not content with slapping its unreasonable ‘sanctions’ against the DPRK over its self-defensive H-bomb test and satellite launch for peaceful purposes,” the statement continued, according to RT. “If a war breaks out in the peninsula, the U.S. will be held accountable for igniting the war by mobilizing strategic means and war hardware, regardless of who mounted a preemptive attack.”

Despite it’s isolation, North Korea has a formidable military that’s surprisingly advanced. It’s nuclear missile development program has been in overdrive in recent years.

In late August, North Korea launched a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead from a submarine for the first time, Reutersreports. The missile traveled over 300 miles in the direction of Japan before crashing into the sea.

North Korea also launched three land-based ballistic missiles in a single morning in early September without any prior warning, according to CNN. Those missiles, medium-ranged Rodongs, travelled approximately 600 miles over the sea of Japan before crashing into it. Japan labeled the situation a “serious threat.”

If North Korea were to launch a nuclear assault, the likely targets would be U.S. and South Korean bases in South Korea, as well as U.S. bases in Japan.

While North Korea does pose a serious threat to U.S. personnel, allies, and interests in the region, Pyongyang’s warnings can become almost humorously hyperbolic at times.

“We have state-of-the-art weapons that no country in the world has previously possessed and that can bombard the U.S. in any way we want,” one recent statement out of North Korea boasted, according to RT.

What’s not clear from South Korea’s announcement that it has plans to assassinate Kim in place if necessary is how quickly these plans could be implemented.

In order to be at all effective in preventing or minimizing damage from a nuclear attack, operatives would in all likelihood need to assassinate Kim preemptively or immediately after the first orders were given, perhaps. There would be very little time, if any, to prepare or respond once the orders were given to launch live missiles.

Of course, let’s hope it never comes to that.

Now we’ll just have to wait and see what sort of saber-rattling response Kim Jong-un has after hearing of South Korea’s plans to assassinate him.

[Featured Image by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images]

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