High-level North Korea executions 'show Kim Jong-un's inexperience and arrogance'

A series of executions carried out against senior North Korean officials this year - the latest casualty being the defence minister Hyon Yong-chol who was reportedly executed for falling asleep - is symptomatic of leader Kim Jong-un's "inexperience and arrogance", analysts say.

The North Korean regime executed 66-year-old Hyon on April 30 by placing him in front of a ZPU-4 anti-aircraft gun at a firing range watched by hundreds of people in the capital, Pyongyang, the deputy director of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, Han Ki-Beom, told a parliamentary committee today.

The agency reported that the defence chief, who was appointed head of the country's military in 2012, had fallen asleep during military meetings and had answered back to the North Korean premier.

Kim Gwang-lim, chairman of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee and a lawmaker in the Saenuri Party in South Korea, said that Hyon was killed for failing to follow a number of orders from Kim.

Such events in North Korea are hard to verify because of the lack of external media permitted to operate within the country and the South Korean intelligence agency's sources remain unclear.

"The NIS (National Intelligence Service) official said it had been confirmed by multiple sources," Shin Kyoung-min, a lawmaker and member of the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, who attended the private briefing on the execution, told Reuters. "It is still just intelligence, but he said they were confident."

Before Hyon's execution, Kim had already ordered the killing of 15 senior officials this year alone, while around 70 officials have been executed since he became North Korean leader in 2011 following the death of his father, according to the South Korean agency.

Analysts believe that the series of executions is a "petulant" strategy employed by 32-year-old Kim to instill fear in other officials who may be inclined to oppose the youthful leader and show that he has as much authority as his father and grandfather, who both led North Korea.

"This seems to be pretty nihilistic to me, just sort of shooting the hell out of the people around him to make everyone petrified and hoping that the fear will then enforce some discipline and make people very, very careful," says Dr Kerry Brown, associate fellow of the Asia Programme at international affairs thinktank Chatham House. "You can do that for a certain period of time, then one day, when you're in the bunker, people all turn against you. It's worrying, it is really worrying."

"It's very petulant. It's a combination of absolute inexperience and arrogance I think," Dr Brown adds. "It may be that he is clearing out opponents to radical economic reform, but it's a mighty curious way to do it."

"He's lived in the weirdest world. He's had some experience with his school in Geneva but if your one experience of normality is Geneva then there is a problem. Basically, he has had a life surrounded by people who won't oppose him."

Kim was set to attend the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on May 9 to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, but the North Korean leader opted out and sent the head of his parliament instead. Moscow had earlier confirmed his visit.

Earlier this week, the South Korean government warned that Pyongyang could be in possession of fully operational missile-launching submarines within five years, following a successful ballistic missile test.

Both North and South Korea are technically still at war after a ceasefire brought fighting to an end in July 1953 but the two countries remain in a state of armed truce.