Seoul is preparing to target North Korea’s leader after the hermit state rattled nerves with its sixth nuclear test and ramped up tensions with the US.
And in an effort to stop North Korea from building up its nuclear aresenal, South Korea is looking to target Kim Jong-un.
Military leaders hope the threat of assassination will leave Kim fearing for his life and lead him to stand down on his growing nuclear ambitions.
South Korean Defence minister Song Young Moo told lawmakers in Seoul that a special forces unit will be established by the end of the year.
According to South Korea, the unit would be a brigade of 1,500 to 3,000 soldiers and would be an official body.
Shin Won-sik, a former three-star general for the South Korean military said: “The best deterrence we can have, next to having our own nukes, is to make Kim Jong-un fear for his life.
“We can now build ballistic missiles that can slam through deep underground bunkers where Kim Jong-un would be hiding.
“The idea is how we can instill the kind of fear a nuclear weapon would — but do so without a nuke.
“In the medieval system like North Korea, Kim Jong-un’s life is as valuable as hundreds of thousands of ordinary people whose lives would be threatened in a nuclear attack.”
Meanwhile, the South Korean military has been busy retooling helicopters and transporting planes to infiltrate North Korea at night time, The New York Times reports.
The highly unusual move for the South Korean Government to announce its plans to try and assassinate a head of state illustrates just how determined Seoul is to scare Kim.
But, the proposed decapitation unit has stoked many questions about whether or not South Korea plans to join forces with the United States in a plot to assassinate the supreme leader.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has made it clear the US does not want to see regime change in North Korea, but this plan could leave the paranoid country fearing leaders want to take him out.
South Korean President Moon Jae-In has repeatedly said he does not want to have nuclear weapons in its military arsenal despite South Korea hosting the US anti-missile THAAD system.
But the calls for arms are growing louder from South Koreans and Conservative politicians.
Mr Moon says he wants to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons, not increase them.
The plans for the unit come after the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to increase sanctions against the rogue state.
On Monday, the UN Security Council decided to step up sanctions on North Korea after its sixth and largest nuclear test.
Izumi Nakamitsu, U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs said: “I think we all understand the consequences of a military escalation, a .military solution’.
“Maybe I’m missing something but as far as I hear, no one is really asking for any collapse of DPRK, quite the contrary. No one is talking about regime change, quite the contrary.
“When people say that because the international security environment is so difficult, tensions are so high, that we can´t discuss disarmament, that is historically not accurate.”