Seoul to Create Special Unit to Strike at N. Korea Wartime Leadership

South Korea will this year launch a special unit tasked with incapacitating North Korea's wartime leadership, two years ahead of schedule, the Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo said Wednesday.

    During its New Year policy briefing to Acting President and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, and the Defense Minister said the military is putting top priority on beefing up defense capabilities against North Korea's weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which includes nukes and missiles, state news agency (Yonhap) reported.    "We are planning to set up a special brigade with the goal of removing or (at least) paralyzing North Korea's wartime command structure (in the face of escalating threats from the communist state)," Han said in the briefing.

    The Ministry of National Defense has recently updated the size of weapons-grade plutonium and highly-enriched uranium that the North may be holding, the minister said. The materials are critical in making nuclear weapons.

    Seoul estimates Pyongyang has some 40 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, which is sufficient to manufacture four to eight nuclear weapons.

    In other efforts to cope with WMDs, the military will speed up the planned deployment of advanced weapons by a couple of years from the original schedule of the mid-2020s to enhance the country's defense capabilities, the ministry said.

    Under the "three-pillar" system, South Korea aims to detect the North's incoming missiles and launch counterattacks against the communist state's key facilities. The system includes a "kill chain" strike system, the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD), and the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR) plan. The entire plan is based on the use of locally developed defense systems.

    Looking ahead, the minister warned that the North could make a "strategic or tactical provocation" in the coming months while not giving up its nuclear and missile programs despite stricter international sanctions following its fourth nuclear test in January.

    In his New Year's address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said the North has reached the final stage of preparations to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile in a veiled threat that it is about to develop a nuclear missile capable of reaching the United States.

Source: QNA