North Korean official 'executed by flame-thrower'

A North Korean official has been executed with a flame-thrower, South Korean media has reported, amid a crackdown on loyalists of Kim Jong-un's purged uncle.

As many as 11 senior party officials with close ties to Jang Song-taek have apparently recently been executed or sent to political prison camps.

Mr Jang was publicly purged in December and executed after being found guilty of corruption and activities that ran counter to the policies of the Workers' Party of Korea. The regime has shut down the department within the Workers' Party that Mr Jang previously headed.

O Sang-hon, a deputy minister at the Ministry of Public Security was "executed by flame-thrower," a source told South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

Mr O was executed because he had followed Mr Jang's instructions to turn the ministry into a personal security division to help safeguard his business dealings, the paper reported.

The report could not immediately be confirmed, although previous executions have suggested that the North Korean leadership can be inventive when it comes to ridding itself of anyone who has fallen out of favour.

In 2012, a vice minister of the army was executed with a mortar round for reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after Kim Jong-il's death in December of the previous year.

On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair," South Korean media reported, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been targeted for a mortar round and "obliterated".

With the purges apparently continuing, there is concern in Seoul at further possible instability in Pyongyang, coupled with a renewed belligerence being demonstrated by the North.

The South Korean military has launched an intensive search across large areas of the country after a third unmanned reconnaissance drone was handed into authorities over the weekend. The aircraft was more than 80 miles south of the heavily fortified border.

The drone was spotted by locals last year but they only recognised its significance after the recovery of two similar remote-controlled aircraft in recent weeks.

The defence ministry in Seoul has promised to deploy new defensive measures specifically to destroy spy drones.