S. Korea's 'decapitation' army brigade to make debut this year

By Park Sae-jin Posted : January 4, 2017, 11:05 Updated : January 4, 2017, 18:27

[Yonhap Photo]



South Korea's defense ministry vowed to form a special army brigade aimed at decapitating North Korea's leadership this year, two years ahead of schedule, citing its flagrant missile and nuclear threats.

In his New Year policy report Wednesday, Defense Minister Han Min-koo said the brigade would be tasked with "removing and paralyzing North Korea's wartime command structure".

The brigade will carry out its contingency mission in Pyongyang to "decapitate" North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and other top commanders in charge of nuclear weapons, the ministry said.

Without releasing any figures, the ministry updated the size of weapons-grade plutonium and highly-enriched uranium stockpiled by Pyongyang. The ministry's 2016 white paper estimates Pyongyang has some 40 kilograms of plutonium, which is sufficient to build four to eight nuclear weapons.

For the first time last year, US and South Korean troops tested a joint operational scheme called "Operations Plan(OPLAN) 5015" to test preemptive attacks targeting North Korea's leadership.

Pyongyang has threatened to strike Seoul's presidential office as the first subject of retaliation for any attempts to decapitate its leadership.

In March last year, Jeffrey Lewis at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, suggested Pyongyang may see nuclear-armed artillery as an effective deterrent to South Korea threats to decapitate the North's leadership.

South Korea's development of new ballistic and cruise missiles with precision-strike has alarmed North Korea's leadership, he said. Last month, North Korea staged a simulated guerrilla attack on South Korea's presidential residence, watched by Kim.
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