GETTY North Korea is arming children and teaching them how to hack computers

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Lieutenant General In-Bum Chun, one of South Korea’s most decorated military leaders in history, claims a 14-year-old North Korean gets more than 100 hours of military training each year. This means by the time they reach conscription age and serve their time in the military they are able to fire an array of weapons, including an AK-47 machine gun, as well as launch grenades and effectively fend for themselves. He said: “North Korea is very militarised, far beyond any imagination of western powers. “The entire country is like a barracks.

He added the “entire state looks for talented people” in order to better prepare the country for conflict. One of the hermit state’s most powerful tools is its computer hacking abilities, and the caste system that dictates people’s roles is set aside when it comes to selecting recruits for this special task. These “computer whizz kids” are selected from as young as 12 or 13 years old.

GETTY North Korea soldiers are training children as young as 14 in armed combat

The entire country is like a barracks LG Chun on North Korea

LG Chun said: “By 12 or 13-years-old, if he or she shows aptitude for computers, they will be trained up programmers or hackers.” North Korea’s hacking abilities are renowned and the hermit state has been behind a series of crippling cyber attacks, with Britain’s NHS among its targets. Last year, Home Office minister Ben Wallace said: "We believe quite strongly that it came from a foreign state. "North Korea was the state that we believe was involved this worldwide attack.

GETTY North Korea is "like a barracks" said the South Korean general

"We can be as sure as possible - I can't obviously go into the detailed intelligence - but it is widely believed in the community and across a number of countries that North Korea had taken this role." Pressed on the security minister's comments, a Downing Street spokeswoman said she would not get into detailed discussion on cyber attacks, nor whether the UK government had approached North Korean representatives with its concerns.

GETTY South Korea and North Korea recently held talks to reduce tensions