Spartan 3000, la unidad de decapitación surcoreana

South Korea unveils elite 'Spartan 3000' force as Kim Jong-un threatens to 'bury our enemies at sea'

Special forces unit can be deployed to any part of the Korean peninsula within 24 hours and has been trained to take down North Korean military bases

Kim Jong-un watches military exercises being carried out by the Korean People's Army (KPA) Photo: Reuters/KCNA



By James Rothwell
The Telegraph

South Korea has formed an elite force of 3,000 marines which is poised to carry out raids inside North Korea after Kim Jong-un, the regime's leader, ramped up coastal defences and threatened to "bury our enemies at sea."


The unit, dubbed "Spartan 3000", can be deployed to any part of the Korean peninsula within 24 hours and was trained alongside US forces during a mass joint exercise with more than 300,000 troops earlier this month.


The "Spartan" unit's main purpose is to destroy "key military facilities" in the North but it has also been trained to tackle natural disasters, according to the Seoul-based news agency Yonhap.



Landing and anti-landing exercises being carried out at an unknown location

“In the past, the battalion-level unit took 24 hours to be deployed across the Korean Peninsula, while the regimental-level unit took 48 hours,” a military official told Yonhap News.

"However, the new unit will be able to operate within 24 hours even at the regimental level," they added.

It comes as North Korean state media released images of its leader observing military drills on the hermit regime's coastline, where pursuit planes and artillery units have been gathered to ward off an attack from the South.

The drill was intended to prove that Northern forces could "kill ruthlessly the U.S. and South Korea whenever the group of enemies gives off any sort of sparks on the land," according to the Korean Central News Agency.


Landing and anti-landing exercises being carried out by the KPA

"Seeing the daring action of landing units, Kim Jong-un said with pleasure that such surprise landing and attack on the coast would result in a victorious battle," it said in a statement issued in English.

Mr Kim personally ordered his soldiers to "bury at sea any enemies that attack the land in the coast of the country," it added.

The North Korean leader's remarks are the latest in a series of increasingly volatile attacks on the South and its US ally, which have condemned Pyongyang for refusing to shut down its nuclear weapons programme.

And in a further development of tensions between north and south, Pyongyang fired what appeared to be two medium-range ballistic missiles into the sea on Friday, just days after Mr Kim ordered further nuclear tests.

The following Monday, the regime fired another four missiles into the sea, continuing its response to the joint US-South Korean military drills which it has condemned as provocation. =

The missiles were launched from Sukchon in the country's southwest and flew 500 miles into the Sea of Japan, a South Korean defence official said.

The UN Security Council has responded to the North's aggression by imposing fresh sanctions on the secretive regime.