The day after South Korea’s defense minister told his country’s special forces to prepare to take out the North’s leadership in time of war, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un went for a drive in a new model of tank.
Spring is war-game season on the Korean peninsula, and with drills conducted on both sides of the DMZ, Seoul and Pyongyang have both showcased their lethal capabilities.
The joint U.S.-South Korean “Freedom Shield 2024” exercises ended Thursday with live-firing south of the DMZ. North Korea’s drills focused on armored maneuvers and firing. The peninsula remains a tinderbox, and both sides feel the need to stress-test commanders, troops and gear, but verbal and physical posturing is also apparent.
“If Kim Jong-un starts a war, as a key unit of Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation, you must become the world’s strongest special operations unit to swiftly eliminate the enemy leadership,” South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik told elite troops of the Army Special Warfare Command in an address Wednesday.
One day later, Pyongyang state media reported that Mr. Kim had expressed “great satisfaction” after overseeing a tank competition, a concept pioneered in Russia, and armored exercises.
Official images showed Mr. Kim sporting a Soviet-style leather tank helmet and the black leather jacket he favors while visiting units. He was also seen surrounded by crews of a new model of tank, and even driving a tank, having apparently squeezed through the driver’s hatch in the vehicle’s bow.
Other images showed a line of tanks under a helicopter screen, crossing rough ground and firing a parade-style salvo.
Joseph Dempsey, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said on X that the new North Korean tanks showcase “external design elements reminiscent of — or styled on — modern U.S. and Russian [tanks].”
Tough talk
While Mr. Kim frequently stages such martial displays, some people familiar with special operations criticized Seoul’s tough talk.
A former South Korean Special Operations Forces (SOF) soldier who asked to be identified only by his surname, Lee, derided the open discussion of assassination planning.
“I saw news of a joint South Korean-U.S. operation to get rid of the leader of North Korea. This is crazy, this is stupid!” he said. “What if China and Russia did joint military training to get rid of Biden? That would not just make the U.S. government angry, it would make the average American angry!”
During his service in the 1980s, he said, Mr. Lee’s 12-man South Korean team of “black berets” were trained for airborne and amphibious operations against the North.
Their core mission was to take out the command center of a naval base in Wonsan, the strategic bay just north of the DMZ. Retired U.S. officers have told The Washington Times that Wonsan — though heavily defended — is a key target for an amphibious counter-attack in the event of the outbreak of a new war on the peninsula.
Another ultra-high-risk SOF mission, code-named “Rollercoaster,” recalled Israel’s Entebbe raid in 1976.
It aimed to deceive North Korean air defenses, land an aircraft at an enemy air base, where commandos would take out the control tower and other assets, before flying home.
“We were told to leave most of our gear at the base,” Mr. Lee said. “The idea was in and out.”
Black berets also built a mock-up of Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Palace, and trained to storm it.
“This was kind of secret, but everyone knew,” he said. “My colleagues told me this, through word of mouth.”
“Decapitation” operations are not new on the peninsula.
In 1968, the height of Asia’s Cold War, 31 North Korean commandos infiltrated the south in a failed bid to assassinate then-President Park Chung-hee.
In response, the South created its own secret “Dirty Dozen” style unit of criminals who trained on a Yellow Sea island, Silmido, in commando skills. The plan: infiltrate Pyongyang and assassinate “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung.
However, the mission was aborted during a period of North-South detente. The commandos eventually hijacked a bus and drove for Seoul, apparently hoping to negotiate their release from service. Ambushed at a police roadblock, none survived. The story, long hushed up, only leaked out after South Korea democratized in 1987.
Tough target
The U.S. SEAL mission that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in 2011 remains the most famous commando operation of recent years. Any attack on Mr. Kim would be far riskier, experts say.
“The advantages of a lone [Special Forces’] team are surprise, concentration of fire on a singular mission and violence of action,” said Michael Yon, a veteran of U.S. Army Special Forces. “Such an attack in the Korean context likely is a kamikaze mission.”
Still, it is “not beyond the realm of possibility,” he said, adding, “During a time of general warfare, I see them inserting teams all over the place.”
A person with close familiarity with South Korea’s special operatives, speaking anonymously, said Mr. Kim would be a tougher target than any other.
“If you look at modern eliminations, they were mostly done by long range,” the source said, referring to drone strikes. “I don’t think there is a comparison to the challenge of taking down Kim: He has an entire nation protecting him.”
“Anyone ready to give his life to kill another person may be able to do it,” the source continued. “But Kim is a demigod in North Korea. … [The mission] can’t be compared to killing a man.”
Mr. Yon, currently a security analyst researching the infiltration of dangerous individuals through Panama’s Darien Gap, said his training never included assassinating a hostile nation’s leader.
“That would be more intel-type stuff,” he said. “Assassination is always an arrow in the quiver.”
Western armies have targeted and killed terrorist leaders, but the two Koreas are unusual in tasking their SOF units to kill an opposing head of state.
Even so, Mr. Yon said Seoul’s recent announcement is more likely part of a psychological operation aimed at Pyongyang rather than a statement of imminent intent.
Mr. Lee, the ex-black beret whose own family has been divided since the Korean War, is bitter about the seasonal barrages of war talk lobbed across the DMZ.
“It’s like a gun pointing at each other,” he said.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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