Seoul intelligence: North Korea plans attacks on South Korean embassies

The National Intelligence Service said it had recently “detected numerous indications that North Korea is preparing terrorist attacks against our embassy staff or citizens in various countries, China, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.”

“North Korea has sent agents to these countries to expand surveillance of South Korean embassies and is also engaged in specific activities, such as searching for South Korean citizens as potential terrorist targets,” it said in a statement sent to the AFP news agency.

The spy agency said it involved members of North Korea’s elite stranded abroad during the pandemic and now, as Pyongyang eased strict border controls, avoiding returning home and “skeptical” about the regime.

Pyongyang treats desertion as a serious crime and is believed to punish offenders, their families and even people indirectly involved in the incidents with harsh punishments.

North Korean embassy officials may file false reports, blaming “external” factors for the voluntary departure of their colleagues to avoid punishment. Under this pretext, North Korea may be “planning revenge” against South Korean embassy staff, the agency said.

South Korea’s foreign ministry said Thursday it has raised the terror threat at five of its diplomatic missions: embassies in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, and consulates in the Russian port city of Vladivostok and the Chinese city of Shenyang.

Both Seoul and Pyongyang have embassies or consulates in all five countries.

According to Seoul, North Korea maintains diplomatic ties with more than 150 countries, but financial constraints have reduced the number of missions it has abroad since the 1990s.

According to Seoul’s Unification Ministry, 196 North Korean defectors defected to South Korea last year, about 10 of them from Pyongyang’s elite class, which includes diplomats and possibly their children. It was the highest since 2017, according to Seoul. the number of members of the North Korean elite who defected to South Korea.

“After the end of the pandemic, North Korean agents who were previously locked up in their country were able to go abroad for missions, and South Koreans are also traveling abroad without any restrictions,” Lee Man-jong, president of the Korea Terrorism Research Association, told AFP. “Pyongyang appears to be targeting South Korean assets and citizens in foreign countries with which they have established strong diplomatic ties,” he added.

Expatriates from North Korea are increasingly questioning the regime that has isolated their country, experts say, as a result of their prolonged stay abroad during the pandemic. “By living abroad, these North Koreans were able to send their children to normal schools, avoid propaganda education and the constant need to obey the regime,” said one defecting researcher who heads the North Korea Research Institute.

Pyongyang is suspected of orchestrating the 1996 assassination of the South Korean consul in Vladivostok, who was attacked and killed by an unidentified assailant. According to South Korean reports, the consul, who was also an intelligence agent, was monitoring Pyongyang’s illegal activities, including drug trafficking and the production of counterfeit banknotes.

In addition, in 1983 Pyongyang staged an assassination attempt in Myanmar when a bomb exploded at a mausoleum in Yangon during a visit by then-South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan. The president survived, but 21 people were killed, including some government ministers.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared Seoul his country’s “main enemy” and threatened war if the country’s territory is violated by “even a fraction of a millimeter.”