The deployment began two or three years ago and seven 7,000-strong divisions are now in place, an unidentified senior government official told Yonhap news agency.
“The threat that North Korea may infiltrate special forces for limited warfare has become real,” the agency quoted a separate senior defence ministry official as saying.
The defence ministry refused to confirm the Yonhap report, but President Lee Myung-Bak discussed the North’s special warfare capabilities at an unprecedented meeting Tuesday with 150 top officers from all armed services.