Some North Korean troops stationed along the border have donned a camouflage uniform similar to that worn by South Koreans, apparently to practise intrusion drills, a defence ministry official said Tuesday.

The move prompted the South to advance the supply of new uniforms for its own troops to avoid confusion, the official told journalists in a background briefing.

"It's been confirmed some North Korean frontline troops are wearing uniforms with woodland camouflage pattern which is similar to those of South Korean uniforms," the official said.

"Our judgment is that the North's special forces stationed there are staging intrusion drills wearing the uniforms."

The South's military has begun supplying new "digital camouflage" uniforms and is considering speeding up the distribution following the North's move.

The North is believed to have some 200,000 special forces and to have deployed some 50,000 of them along the border with the South, the ministry said.

Tensions are high following the North's shelling last month of a South Korean border island, which killed four people including civilians. The South's forces are on alert for any fresh attacks.

earlier related report
N.Korea cracks down on lax border patrols: report
Seoul (AFP) Dec 28, 2010 - North Korea has launched a crackdown on military border guards suspected of assisting in the trafficking of people and drugs in exchange for bribes, a Seoul-based defectors' group said Tuesday.

North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said Pyongyang on Sunday issued an emergency order for a check-up on guards in the northeastern cities of Hyesan and Hoeryong, both bordering China.

"The very unusual emergency personnel checkup... caused a big fuss as many soldiers taking holidays or resting at military infirmaries rushed to go back to barracks," the group quoted one source in the North as saying.

The move was intended to shore up lax military discipline among border guards, many of whom are suspected of aiding human or drug trafficking in exchange for bribes, said sources quoted by the group.

Many are also suspected of turning a blind eye to a growing stream of refugees fleeing to China, they said, adding one officer was even caught deleting video footage from surveillance cameras in exchange for bribes.

Some officers also tried to bribe their supervisors in exchange for months-long holidays, the group said.

Daily NK, a Seoul-based online newspaper, reported this month that Kim Jong-Un, son and heir apparent to leader Kim Jong-Il, had ordered tighter border security and a crackdown on would-be refugees.

Special investigators sent from Pyongyang were patrolling the border and checking the number of household members in a campaign to punish "traitors who leave and betray the mother country", the paper quoted a source as saying.

Persistent food shortages, along with a botched currency revaluation last year have deepened the North's economic woes.

About 10,000 North Koreans over the past three years have fled to the South via China despite the risk of potentially severe punishment -- more than the total in the previous fifty years.

Young female refugees can become a commodity in China, where they are sold to farmers for up to 1,500 dollars a head amid a shortage of Chinese women in the countryside.