Photos of North Korea leader Kim may be old

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - Pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il issued by the communist state may be several months old and possibly taken before his reported illness, South Korean media said on Monday, raising more questions about his health.

North Korea's state TV broadcast pictures of Kim on Saturday inspecting a women's military unit, as the reclusive country stepped up a campaign to show its "Dear Leader" was healthy after U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials said he may have suffered a stroke in August.

The photographs of Kim, wearing sunglasses and looking generally healthy as he talked outdoors with women soldiers, were the first in nearly two months.

But the surrounding greenery suggested the pictures may be from before his last public appearance in the middle of summer and not from recent weeks, when trees in the northern part of the Korean peninsula would have begun changing colour, local media quoted government sources and experts as saying.

"There is little chance they were taken in October," the JoongAng Ilbo daily quoted Lee Eun-joo, a horticulture specialist at Seoul National University, as saying.

Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified intelligence source as saying: "Having analysed the look of Kim Jong-il in the picture, it is impossible to know what year the pictures were taken but looking from the environment, it's likely it was July or August."

TIGHTLY GUARDED SECRET

South Korea's Unification Ministry, which manages bilateral relations with the North and monitors its official media, declined to comment on when the pictures may have been taken.