February 18, 2016•Update: February 20, 2016
By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
South Korea is in danger of a North Korean terror attack on “public facilities and key infrastructure,” according to intelligence revealed to lawmakers at an emergency government meeting in Seoul Thursday.
Relations between the neighbors were completely severed this month after the North defied United Nations resolutions with a rocket launch, having carried out its fourth ever nuclear test a month earlier.
While the South swiftly responded by strengthening its joint military stance with the United States, Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) has raised the possibility that a North Korean attack might be more covert.
“The North can inflict damage on anti-North Korean activists, defectors and Seoul government officials,” ruling party lawmaker Lee Chul-woo was quoted as saying by local news agency Yonhap after being briefed on the NIS’ information.
“It could target public facilities and key infrastructure, including subways, shopping malls and power stations,” he added.
Lee claimed that North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau has stepped up preparations for a terror attack on the South under the orders of leader Kim Jong-un.
Seoul’s banking sector raised its guard earlier this week in consideration of South Korea’s history of coming under cyber attack – including following North Korea’s third nuclear test in 2013.
But Thursday’s warning extended beyond suspicious e-mails and malware to include potential poisoning and kidnapping.
Meanwhile, the local Navy said that it was conducting a counterterrorism drill with the Coast Guard, featuring an operation to defend commercial vessels in a North Korean hijacking scenario.
