United States Navy SEALs shot and killed several North Korean civilians during a botched mission in 2019 to plant a listening device in the nuclear-armed country, reportedly approved by US President Donald Trump, a leading US news outlet reports.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the classified mission was carried out by the US Navy’s SEAL Team 6 during high-stakes diplomatic negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang in early 2019.

The elite special forces unit – the same one that killed former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 – was tasked with covertly going ashore in North Korea and planting a listening device to spy on the country’s leadership.

But working in the dead of night with blackout communications, a series of errors led to civilians – several North Korean

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