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Story highlights
- Analyst says South Korea president would want to have this option on table
- South Korea has upped its rhetoric against Pyongyang since 5th nuke test
Seoul (CNN)South Korea has elite troops on standby ready to assassinate Kim Jong Un if the country feels threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons, the country's defense minister revealed this week.
Asked in parliament Wednesday if there was a special forces unit already assembled that could eliminate North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, Han Min-koo said: "Yes, we do have such a plan. "
"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," he added.
Kim Jong Un inspects Farm No. 1116 in an undisclosed location in a photo released September 13, 2016.
It has long been suspected that such a plan was in place but the minister's candid answer surprised some.
"A president would want to have the option," says Daniel Pinkston of Troy University. "... Not presenting that to the president, not training for it and having that capability would be a mistake."
Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
North Korea has a history of using creative language to express loathing for its enemies. Here are some of the regime's more colorful threats against the West.
March 2016: North Korea warned it would make a "preemptive and offensive nuclear strike" in response to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Pyongyang issued a long statement promising that "time will prove how the crime-woven history of the U.S. imperialists who have grown corpulent through aggression and war will come to an end and how the Park Geun Hye group's disgraceful remaining days will meet a miserable doom as it is keen on the confrontation with the fellow countrymen in the north."
March 2016: North Korea warned it would make a "preemptive and offensive nuclear strike" in response to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Pyongyang issued a long statement promising that "time will prove how the crime-woven history of the U.S. imperialists who have grown corpulent through aggression and war will come to an end and how the Park Geun Hye group's disgraceful remaining days will meet a miserable doom as it is keen on the confrontation with the fellow countrymen in the north."
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
March 2016: Following the imposition of strict U.N. sanctions, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country's "nuclear warheads need to be ready for use at any time," the North Korean state news agency KCNA reported.
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
January 2016: North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a thermonuclear weapon, justifying its right to have an H-bomb on the grounds of "self defense."
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
September 2015: In a statement, North Korea said its nuclear arsenal was ready for use "at any time."
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
August 2015: As forces from the U.S. and South Korea took part in joint military drills. North Korea's state media referred to the exercises, which started on August 17, as "madcap" and issued a stern warning to America: "If the U.S. ignites a war in the end, far from drawing a lesson taught by its bitter defeat in the history, the DPRK will bring an irrevocable disaster and disgrace to it."
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
August 2015: On August 23, as North Korean negotiators were meeting with their South Korean counterparts over current tensions, a KCTV presenter appeared on air repeating North Korea's ambitions to "destroy the warmongering South Korean puppet military."
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
December 2014: The FBI said it suspected North Korea was behind a hack of Sony Entertainment, which led executives to initially cancel the theatrical release of "The Interview." The film was a comedy about an American television personality who the CIA asks to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. North Korea threatened "merciless" action against the U.S. if the film was released, accusing the U.S. of retaliating for the hack by shutting down North Korea's Internet access. North Korea's National Defense Commission also called U.S. President Barack Obama "reckless" and a "monkey."
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
July 2014: North Korea threatens to hit the White House and Pentagon with nuclear weapons. American "imperialists threaten our sovereignty and survival," North Korean officials reportedly said after the country accused the U.S. of increasing hostilities on the border with South Korea. "Our troops will fire our nuclear-armed rockets at the White House and the Pentagon -- the sources of all evil," North Korean Gen. Hwang Pyong-So said, according to The Telegraph.
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
March 2013: Angered by tougher U.N. sanctions and joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea, the Supreme Command of North Korea's military vowed to put "on highest alert" the country's "rocket units" that are assigned to strike "U.S. imperialist aggressor troops in the U.S. mainland and on Hawaii and Guam and other operational zone in the Pacific." Whether Pyongyang has the will to back up such doomsday talk is a perplexing question, but there is evidence that its know-how -- in terms of uranium enrichment, nuclear testing and missile technology -- is progressing.
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
February 2013: In a message to the United States and South Korea, North Korea vowed "miserable destruction" if "your side ignites a war of aggression by staging reckless joint military exercises."
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
June 2012: Once again, North Korea vowed to be "merciless" in its promised attack on the United States, this time threatening a "sacred war" as it aimed artillery at South Korean media groups. North Korea was mad that South Korean journalists had criticized Pyongyang children's festivals meant to foster allegiance to the Kim family.
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
April 2012: North Korea's state-run news agency reported that "the moment of explosion is approaching fast" and promised "merciless" strikes against the United States. "The U.S. had better ponder over the prevailing grave situation," it said. Later that month, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket that broke apart and fell into the sea. The launch came during preparations for a grand party that celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea.
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
November 2011: North Korea's military threatened to turn the capital of South Korea into a "sea of fire," according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
2009: After the U.S. pledge to give nuclear defense to South Korea, Pyongyang threatened a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation."
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Photos: North Korea's verbal volleys
2002: U.S. President George W. Bush includes North Korea in an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq, which North Korea brushes off as a "little short of a declaration of war." North Korea reportedly threatened to "wipe out the aggressors." That year, North Korea also threatened to kick out international inspectors who were in the country to monitor its compliance with global nuclear nonproliferation agreements.
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South Korea has intensified its rhetoric against the leadership of North Korea since Pyongyang claimed a successful test of a nuclear warhead on September 9.
This week it tested a new type of high powered rocket engine of the type that could be used for an intercontinental ballistic missile.
'Worst case scenario'
The defense ministry has said it is planning for the worst case scenario and assumed North Korea was ready to conduct a sixth nuclear test.
Earlier this month, Leem Ho Young, Chief Director of Strategic Planning at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described a new system called the Korea Massive Punishment & Retaliation (KMPR) just hours after North Korea claimed it had tested a nuclear warhead.
It would involve surgical missile attacks, exclusive special warfare units and an ability to strike North Korea's leadership if South Korea feels threatened by nuclear attack.
Meanwhile, North Korea accused the United States of pushing the peninsula to the brink of war after this week's flyover of two US B-1B bombers close to the DMZ or demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea.
A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer is flanked by two F-15K Slam Eagles during a flight over South Korea, September 21, 2016.
A US military source told CNN this is the closest this type of bomber has ever flown to North Korea.
Pyongyang said it was a "vicious scenario to make a preemptive nuclear strike at the DPRK," according to state-run news agency KCNA.