North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is reportedly worried about an airstrike that could take his life. Photo / AP
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is reportedly worried about an airstrike that could take his life. Photo / AP
Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, is "extremely nervous" about plots to assassinate him, according to South Korea's intelligence agency, and uses a number of ruses to foil would-be assailants.
As well as being fearful of an attack by gunmen on the vehicles that he uses to travel around the country, Kim is also constantly worried about an airstrike, officials of the National Intelligence Service told a restricted session of the South Korean parliament on Thursday, Yonhap News reported.
"Kim is engrossed with collecting information about the 'decapitation operation' through his intelligence agencies", said Lee Cheol-woo, an opposition politician who attended the meeting.
This image made from video of a news bulletin aired by North Korea's KRT in May 2017, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, watching a rocket test launch. Photo / AP
He added that Kim has taken to travelling at dawn and switches between different subordinates' cars instead of always travelling in his own Mercedes-Benz.
Kim's concerns have soared since it was reported earlier this year that the US and South Korea are setting up a special forces unit that would be tasked with eliminating the North Korean leadership in the event of war breaking out on the peninsula.
In March, members of the US Navy's Seal Team Six - which carried out the raid in which Osama Bin Laden was killed - took part in exercises with South Korean special forces, along with elements of the US Army's Rangers, Delta Force and Green Berets units.
The US made it clear that the units were training to carry out a "decapitation operation" designed to kill the North's leaders and destroy the regime's ability to continue fighting.
In May, Pyongyang claimed to have foiled a CIA plot for a North Korean who had been "ideologically corrupted and bribed" to assassinate Kim with a "biochemical substance" and accused the US of conducting state-sponsored terrorism.
Aside from external threats to Kim's life, there are reports of a number of attempted coups against the Kim family, which has ruled the North since 1945.
This image made from video on May 30, 2017 shows Kim Jong Un watching a missile launch. Photo / AP
Personal security around Kim was dramatically stepped up in March 2013, according to intelligence sources in South Korea, with armoured vehicles deployed close to his personal residence in Pyongyang, troops armed with automatic rifles on the streets of the city and mobile phone signals jammed at public events that the North Korean leader attended, apparently out of concern that they could be used to detonate a bomb.
Four months previously, there were reports of outbreaks of gunfire on the streets of the North Korean capital between factions within the military and heightened discontent in some quarters with the way in which Kim was managing the country.
Kim Jong-un: Five strange "facts"
Far-fetched media claims made about North Korea's young leader
1. "He could drive at the age of 3" Kim Jong-un was a child prodigy who could drive at just three-years-old, according to North Korea's school curriculum. At 9, the future leader was winning yachting races, pupils are told.
2. "He's had plastic surgery" "The regime wants its people to see Kim Jong-un as Great Leader Kim Il-sung reincarnated. They fattened him up and gave him a thorough training - and plastic surgery, too, some even say - to make him look just like his grandfather," Kim Kwang-in told the New York Times.
3. "He's the Sexiest Man Alive" In 2012, China's Communist Party Online newspaper fell for a report on satirical website The Onion, naming the North Korean dictator as the 'Sexiest Man Alive'.
4. "He's addicted to cheese" In 2014, Kim Jong-un's rumoured bout of ill health was widely attributed to an avid fondness of Emmental. He reportedly grew to love it while studying in Switzerland and "gorged on the cheese so much that he has ballooned in size and is now walking with a limp", according to tabloid reports.
5. "He conquered North Korea's highest mountain" In April 2015, Kim Jong-un climbed North Korea's highest mountain Mount Paektu, wearing a suit and dress shoes, according to state media in Pyongyang. At 9,000ft, Paektu is almost twenty times the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
