According to South Korean intelligence, North Korea has dismissed the chief of the military's General Political Bureau Hwang Pyong-so.

In a report to the National Assembly Intelligence Committee on Monday, the National Intelligence Service(NIS) said the North conducted inspections led by party leadership into the powerful military bureau for three months since October.

According to main opposition Liberty Korea Party lawmaker Kang Seok-ho who chairs the intelligence committee, the NIS said that following the inspection, Hwang Pyong-so was dismissed as chief of the North Korean military's General Political Bureau.

He is believed to be now receiving "ideological education" at a senior-level party school.

The NIS also said the bureau's vice chief Kim Won-hong has also been dismissed and expelled from the ruling Workers' Party while many other officials were fired or executed. 

The spy agency said that Kim Jong-gak, former vice minister of the People's Armed Forces Ministry, appears to have been appointed as the new leader of the bureau.  

In November, the NIS told the National Assembly that North Korea's ruling party had launched an inspection into the bureau, citing its "impure attitude." It said the inspection led by Choe Ryong-hae, vice chairman of the Workers' Party Central Committee, was the first of its kind in two decades.