A US Army officer says the US and South Korean Special Forces have been parachuting into North Korea to spy on the country’s military installations.
Army Brigadier General Neil Tolley, the commander of US Special Operations Forces in South Korea, said US and South Korean forces have been sent into North Korean territories to gather intelligence on the location of specific underground sites, AFP reported on Monday.
“We send (South Korean) soldiers and US soldiers to the North to do special reconnaissance,” the US commander said.
Tolley made the comments during a speech at a Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, a city in the US state of Florida, last Tuesday.
He claimed that Pyongyang had built thousands of underground tunnels since the Korean War and these tunnels were hidden from US reconnaissance satellites.
“After 50 years, we still don’t know much about the capability and full extent of the underground facilities,” he added.
Tensions have peaked on the Korean Peninsula following North Korea’s recent attempt to launch a satellite in April and reports that Pyongyang might conduct a new nuclear test.
A US congressional committee is pressuring President Barack Obama’s administration to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea.
But government officials in Seoul have rejected the idea of nuclear weapons deployment in South Korea, arguing that the move would derail efforts to persuade the North into halting its nuclear arms program.
