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North Korean police have been ordered to bolster security across the country to ensure dictator Kim Jong Un is protected and to “eliminate” threats to his party’s leadership, amid reports of crumbling loyalty towards him.
The news comes at a time of heightened tension in the Korean peninsula, as analysts fear the isolated country is preparing for another nuclear test.
In the past two months, North Korea’s brinkmanship strategy has been revived. Kim has introduced a new law allowing for preemptive nuclear strikes and has launched a series of test missiles, including one that flew over Japan.
North Korean police have been tasked with bolstering security across the country to ensure dictator Kim Jong Un (pictured visiting a school on Oct. 17) is protected amid reports of eroding loyalty to it
But as North Korea forms a united front to the world, it appears Kim has been rocked by dissension from its own closed borders.
Local officials have been ordered by North Korea’s highest authorities to put their houses in order and eliminate all potential threats to the leadership from within, Radio Free Asia (RFA) has reported. reported – citing a judicial source.
The Ministry of Social Security — a law enforcement agency overseen by North Korea’s State Affairs Commission, which is headed by Kim himself — has instructed police and social security agencies to set up a close surveillance network.
The aim is to identify people considered problematic for the regime, and to monitor their activities and ultimately “eliminate” them, the source told the news channel.
On Oct. 12, the ministry “broadcast a project agenda for protecting the security of the head of the revolution (an honorific used for Kim),” the source said. “This is a response to the recent rise in political tensions that are disrupting social stability.”
He continued: “Police were ordered within this month to find and eliminate factors that could be maneuvered into their jurisdiction by impure enemies among the residents … in their jurisdiction.” Impure enemies refers to people whose loyalty to North Korea’s supreme leader may have wavered — and who could influence others to follow the same path.
The source also said that police have been ordered to “remove all nationals who have entered their jurisdiction illegally” and to prevent “problem nationals from leaving their jurisdiction to other areas”.
North Koreans are not allowed to move and live where they want in the country without permission from the powers that be there.
Local officials have been ordered by North Korea’s top authorities to put their homes in order and eliminate all potential threats to the leadership from within, Radio Free Asia (RFA) has reported – citing a judicial source. In the photo: Kim poses with graduates in military uniform
Pictured: Kim Jong Un pats the face of an awkward-looking graduate in military uniform
If they are allowed to move, they must register with the local authorities and living outside their designated area is illegal.
The judicial source told RFA that the police have been ordered to conduct daily ‘search and patrol checks’ for such problematic citizens.
This will be done in conjunction with “security forces, special agencies and the Worker-Peasant Red Guards,” he said. The Red Guard Worker-Peasant is a North Korean paramilitary group and the largest civil defense force in the country.
Police have also been tasked with monitoring and reporting “rumours,” and have been instructed to work to prevent them from spreading to those in their jurisdiction.
“They need to thoroughly monitor and report on the trends and public sentiments of the residents under the guise of recent political tensions,” the source told RFA.
However, officials are getting tired of the workload, he said, with some complaining of fatigue from having to work late into the night.
“Some officials are complaining that the orders of the central party ignore the realities of the provincial areas and they continue to direct more and more,” a second source told RFA.
In this photo taken by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in center white, inspects military exercises at an undisclosed location in North Korea, Oct. 6.
Pictured: Kim Jong Un stands on a hill overlooking a missile launch in North Korea
News of the crackdown came days after a terrified North Korean graduate was pictured looking at the floor as Kim hugged him in his latest propaganda stunt.
The despot was visiting a school in Pyongyang, possibly just days after launching a series of rockets toward Japan, raising tensions in the region.
The leader was shown grinning as he put his arm around the young man, who was wearing a military uniform, and covered his face with his other hand.
The graduate looks to the ground, clearly uneasy at the sudden embrace of one of the world’s most notorious dictators.
Pyongyang fired 100 more artillery shells off the west coast on Wednesday, the South Korean military said, just hours after it launched hundreds of shells into the sea off the east and west coasts in what it called a dire warning to South Korea.
North Korea has been conducting weapons tests at an unprecedented pace this year, firing a short-range ballistic missile and hundreds of artillery shells near the heavily armed inter-Korean border on Friday.
On Monday, South Korean troops began their annual Hoguk defense exercises, designed to increase their ability to respond to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.
Pyongyang has reacted angrily to South Korean and joint military activities, calling them provocations and threatening countermeasures. Seoul says the drills are regular and defensive.
Pyongyang fired 100 more artillery shells off the west coast on Wednesday, the South Korean military said, just hours after it launched hundreds of shells into the sea off the east and west coasts in what it called a dire warning to South Korea.
North Korea fired the last shots around 12:30 p.m., South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement, urging Pyongyang to stop actions that threaten peace and security in the region.
In Washington, a US State Department spokesman, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, said: “We are aware of these reports. We call on the DPRK to cease all provocative and threatening actions.”
Earlier, a spokesman for the general staff of the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) said the latest move was in response to South Korea’s firing of more than 10 grenades from multiple rocket launchers near the frontline between 8:27 a.m. and 9:40 a.m.
“Our military strongly warns enemy forces to immediately end the very irritating act of provocation in the frontline areas,” the KPA official said.
Wednesday’s shelling comes shortly after the north fired some 100 shells into the sea off the west coast and fired another 150 rounds off the east coast on Tuesday evening.
North Korea later said the shots were intended to send a “serious warning” and “vigorous military countermeasure” to South Korea.