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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently ordered preparations for launching attacks on South Korea, the South’s spy agency disclosed Thursday, as worries about the North grow after its recent nuclear test and rocket launch.
In a closed-door briefing to ruling Saenuri Party members, the National Intelligence Service said Kim’s spy agency has begun work to implement his order to ‘actively muster capabilities’ to carry out cyber and other attacks on South Korea, according to one Saenuri official who attended the meeting.
North Korea has a history of attacks on South Korea:
1. The 2010 shelling on an island that killed four South Koreans.
2. The 1987 bombing of a South Korean passenger plane that killed all 115 people on board.
It is however, impossible to independently confirm claims about any such attack preparations.
The Saenuri official refused to say whether the briefing discussed how the information was obtained.
During the briefing, the NIS, cited studies on past North Korean provocations and other unspecified assessments. NIS also said the attacks could target anti-Pyongyang activists, defectors and government officials in South Korea, the Saenuri official said requesting anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to media publicly.
Attacks on subways, shopping malls and other public places could also happen, he said.
The current North Korea standoff isn’t expected to calm down soon, as Seoul and Washington are discussing deploying a sophisticated US missile defense system in South Korea that Pyongyang warns would be a source of regional tension.
Seoul defense officials also said that they began preliminary talks on 7 February with the United States on deploying the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, the same day North Korea conducted what it said was a satellite launch but is condemned by Seoul and Washington as a banned test of missile technology.
The talks are aimed at working out details for formal missile deployment talks, such as who’ll represent each side, according to Seoul’s Defense Ministry.
The United States on Wednesday flew four stealth F-22 fighter jets over South Korea and reaffirmed it maintains an ‘ironclad commitment’ to the defense of its Asian ally. Last month, it sent a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber to South Korea following the North’s fourth nuclear test.
Foreign analysts say the North’s rocket launch and nuclear test put the country further along it its quest for a nuclear-armed missile that could reach the U.S. mainland.
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