North Korean leader Kim Jong-un built eight mansions to protect himself from an assassination attempt, the Daily Mail reported, citing a study by the North Korea Leadership Watch portal.

Published satellite images show ongoing and completed construction work on residential buildings in two elite areas in the center of Pyongyang. The new mansions are located in the Changwangsan complex, in the so-called Forbidden City, where Kim Jong-un and other key members of the North Korean elite live and work. The houses are located across the street from the office buildings of the departments of the Central Committee of the ruling party. The departments are among the most influential institutions in the political culture of the DPRK as they control the operation of the government, security forces and military organizations. The publication also identified a new security building and several vacant plots of land where three to five more residential buildings could be built.

Analyst, director and founder of North Korea Leadership Watch, Michael Madden, told the Daily Mail that one possible reason for the construction was to make it harder to find Kim Jong-un's whereabouts so that his enemies would not know where he sleeps and could not strike.

He said: 'This would be an attack from outside the country targeting the North Korean leadership, along with command and control over its military assets. 

'The most significant activity occurred about ten years ago when South Korean forces simulated such an attack – and it sent Pyongyang into a tizzy.'

Madden also opined that the North Korean leader's paranoid tactics date back to China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who is believed to have gone to bed in a different room every night to avoid being attacked.