South Korea is accelerating plans to create a specialized military unit tasked with targeting key North Korean officials, including dictator Kim Jong-un, in the event of war breaking out.
The brigade, unofficially named the “decapitation unit,” will aim to paralyze Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities by disrupting the nation’s wartime command, an unnamed official from Seoul’s Defense Ministry told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
The unit will also be charged with securing fixed missile launch sites linked to North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction programs.
“The army is seeking to have a special operations unit capable of infiltrating, completing its given mission, and coming back in one piece,” Jang Jun-kyu, the Korean Army’s chief of staff, told the Telegraph.
The brigade was initially supposed to be ready by 2019, but the Defense Ministry said it will be established by the end of the year.
The acceleration comes amid rising tensions on the peninsula, spurred largely by North Korea’s continued development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile systems. Pyongyang conducted two nuclear tests and numerous rocket tests last year as part of its weapons build-up.
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