With questions still lingering about Kim Jong Un, a former longtime CIA official says the US intelligence community will ramp up its information-gathering on the despot’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, who has emerged as his most likely successor, according to a report.

“The CIA is responsible for collecting files on the Kim family. It is not just factual information but also on each individual’s behavior,” Bruce Klingner, who spent 20 years working at the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Nikkei Asian Review.

Klingner told the outlet that the Central Intelligence Agency conducts “leadership analysis,” apart from a more general “political analysis” of a country.

Among the areas to be analyzed are medication history, drug abuse, temperament, self-confidence and tendencies for impetuous action, according to Klingner, now a senior research fellow at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation think tank.

“The CIA will be looking at how much influence Kim Yo Jong has and how officials are deferring to her,” he said about the reclusive leader’s 32-year-old sibling.

Her appearance at the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February 2018 provided the US intelligence community a glimpse at her standing within the Hermit Kingdom, Klingner said.

“Officials who were more senior than her in rank were clearly deferring to her,” he told the outlet.

But Klingner noted that the rogue regime is one of the hardest targets to obtain information on.

“When I shifted from covering the Soviet Union to North Korea, the Soviets looked like an open book compared to Pyongyang,” he said.

Despite speculation that Kim’s sister is most likely to assume the reins of the country, some observers believe Kim’s uncle, Kim Pyong Il, 65, would take over, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.

The younger half-brother of Kim Jong Il previously served as ambassador to the Czech Republic and returned to North Korea last year for the first time in more than three decades.

The 36-year-old Kim Jong Un’s three children are too young to take over directly, with the oldest only 10. His older brother, Kim Jong Chul, has been passed over for leadership.

But questions about an imminent succession might be premature.

On Tuesday, top South Korean officials said their government knows Kim’s whereabouts.

“The government is aware of Kim Jong Un’s location,” Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said without elaborating when asked during a parliamentary session, Bloomberg News reported.

South Korea’s minister for North Korean affairs suggested that Kim may have missed the April 15 commemoration of the 108th birthday of his grandfather, North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, not because of a current illness.