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		</div><p><a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/n-korea-boosting-special-forces.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full" title="South Korean protesters denounce the government's policy over North Korea in Seoul (AP)" src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/min-n-korea-boosting-special-forces.jpg" alt="South Korean protesters denounce the government's policy over North Korea in Seoul (AP)"/></a></p>
<p>North Korea has faster, more powerful tanks prowling the world&#8217;s most heavily armed border and 200,000 special forces poised to carry out assassinations and cause havoc in South Korea, a major military review has said.</p>
<p>Seoul&#8217;s Defence Ministry report, released every two years, signals that the North&#8217;s military threat has expanded. It comes as President Lee Myung-bak&#8217;s administration scrambles to respond to criticism that it was unprepared for a November 23 North Korean artillery attack on a front-line island that killed four people.</p>
<p>That attack, along with an alleged North Korean torpedoing of a warship in March, has prompted South Korea to define the North in the defence document as its &#8220;enemy&#8221;, a stronger description than in 2008 when the North was only called a &#8220;direct and serious threat&#8221;.</p>
<p>South Korean defence documents stopped referring to North Korea as &#8220;the main enemy&#8221; &#8211; a constant subject of North Korean criticism &#8211; in 2004 amid then-warming ties. The North&#8217;s state media reacted angrily to the new reference, calling it a &#8220;grave provocation&#8221; that could trigger war.</p>
<p>The new document says the North intends to rely on its nuclear programme, special forces, long-range artillery, submarines and cyber warfare forces as a counterweight to South Korea&#8217;s high-tech conventional military. North Korea has 200,000 special operations forces, the report says, an increase from 180,000 in the ministry&#8217;s last assessment in 2008. Those forces are aimed at carrying out assassinations and infiltrating and disrupting key facilities in South Korea, it said.</p>
<p>The North&#8217;s army deploys many of its 13,600 long-range artillery guns along the Demilitarised Zone, ready to launch surprise artillery barrages on Seoul and its adjacent areas, according to the document. The country also has developed a new kind of battle tank with better firepower and mobility than previous ones, and the modern tanks have been deployed near the border, it said.</p>
<p>The North&#8217;s authoritarian leader Kim Jong Il has made a priority of trying to build military power superior to the South&#8217;s, and its forces &#8220;are posing a serious threat to South Korea&#8217;s military&#8221;, the document said.</p>
<p>However, despite the North&#8217;s asymmetrical forces, analysts say there is little likelihood that North Korea would launch an all-out war against South Korea, whose military is bolstered by 28,500 American troops in the country. The US has repeatedly promised to keep South Korea under its nuclear umbrella.</p>
<p>The document reconfirmed that the US will deploy an additional 690,000 troops, 160 navy ships and 2,000 military aircraft in the event of a war on the peninsula. South Korea has about 650,000 troops of its own, while the North is thought to have 1.2 million soldiers.</p>
<p>The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The talks on North Korea&#8217;s nuclear programme involve the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia, but have been on hold for nearly two years.</p>
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