Such are the ways of North Korea’s Special Operations Force, an army with the killing skills of Navy SEALs but large enough to populate a small city. U.S. military estimates put the SOF’s ranks at more than 100,000, making it the world’s largest commando force by far. Most soldiers couldn’t handle even one of these warriors in a foxhole. Well-schooled in the martial arts, they can take on several opponents at once with their bare hands. With a sniper’s rifle in those hands, they are said to be able take down more than a few moving targets–at 200 meters–in 15 seconds. One of the corps’s many “bravery exercises” involves sneaking across the demilitarized zone to grab a sign or other souvenir from the South. And if they fail in completing any missions, they are trained to kill themselves on the spot. Known for their unflinching loyalty to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, their role in any future North-South conflict is to create “simultaneous war everywhere in South Korea,” says a former member who defected in the 1960s.
A large part of the reason Washington is keen to resolve the Korean nuclear crisis diplomatically is because of the ferocious potential of Pyongyang’s military–not just the missiles, but the men. The U.S. Army’s latest “Threat and Balance Brief,” an unclassified account of possible war scenarios, forecasts that in the event of all-out conflict, at least 50,000 Northern commandos are expected to land behind allied lines. Some would arrive in minisubs along the coast, others aboard helicopters camouflaged to look like South Korean aircraft or in canvas biplanes flying below radar. “They have a world-class deception program,” says a U.S. military official based in South Korea. The Americans expect guerrilla attacks targeted to stop reinforcement flows from abroad; destroy ammo and fuel dumps; sever road, rail and telecom links, and otherwise “make defeating North Korea harder,” says another U.S. military official.
The SOF is menacing even in peacetime. While they have launched a number of raids in recent years, the SOF’s boldest attack came in 1968, when a 31-member assassination squad attempted to kill South Korean President Park Chung Hee. Of the intruders, 28 died in fighting near the presidential Blue House, one was captured and two managed to stagger home. “One of them had his guts spilling out from a gunshot wound,” says Osamu Eya, a Japanese journalist specializing in North Korea’s military. “He held it in with his own hands and completed the journey back to the North.”
When Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Pyongyang in September, he raised the spy-ship incident during his summit meeting with Kim Jong Il. The North Korean strongman feigned surprise at Tokyo’s version of events, telling his guest “the Special Forces were engaged in a training mission,” and “I never imagined that they were doing that kind of thing!” Kim promised to halt such operations, but nobody thinks his killers have crossed the DMZ for the last time.
