A South Korean government official has issued a warning that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is preparing to engage in various terrorist attacks against the country.
Rep. Lee Chul-Woo claimed Thursday that South Korea intelligence has confirmed that the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau is preparing to engage in cyber attacks, kidnappings and other terrorist activities against its southern neighbor.
Lee said North Korea intends to “muster anti-South terrorist capabilities that can pose a direct threat to our lives and security.”
The Reconnaissance General Bureau is the intelligence and special operations wing of the North Korean military. It is supposedly one of the largest special operations forces in the world, numbering between 60,000 to 100,000 personnel.
North Korea has been accused of kidnapping and abducting as many as 180,000 people from 12 countries, according to one report. The communist dictatorship has also engaged in bombings against civilian targets. North Korean agents detonated three bombs in Burma during an attack on South Korean foreign minister in 1983 — killing 21 and wounding 46. Four years later, North Korea planted a bomb on Korean Airlines Flight 858, killing the 115 passengers on board.
The bombing of flight 858 was the impetus for adding North Korea to the U.S. Department of State’s state sponsors of terrorism list. Former President George W. Bush’s administration subsequently removed North Korea from the list in 2008 in an attempt to secure a deal regarding the North Korean nuclear program.
Though North Korea’s physical attacks are well documented, its cyber program has grown in capability in recent years. North Korea was blamed for the hack against Sony in November 2014, which released a massive amount of data and internal emails. A report in September 2015 claimed that from 2011 to 2015, South Korea was the victim of 114,000 cyber attacks, many of which are attributed to North Korean agents working from both North Korean and Chinese IP addresses.
Tensions between North and South Korea have significantly escalated in recent months. In early January, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test. A month later, North Korea engaged in a rocket launch, which could be a significant stride forward in its ballistic missile program. James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, confirmed Feb. 9 that North Korea had restarted its plutonium reactor, giving it the ability to produce nuclear material within weeks.
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