'North Korea ordered assassination of defector'
By Jun Ji-hye
Police have strengthened their guard of a North Korean defector, who serves as a ranking official at a South Korean state-run think tank, as North Korea is believed to have ordered his assassination, sources said, Friday.
Since mid-January, the police have increased the number of armed guards from two to eight for the full-time protection of Ko Young-hwan, vice president of the Institute for National Security Strategy.
According to the National Intelligence Service (NIS), it secured intelligence that the Kim Jong-un regime has issued an order to kill Ko.
Ko defected to South Korea in 1991 after serving as a North Korean diplomat at the North’s embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
On Thursday, Ko acknowledged that he has been targeted for assassination by the North Korean regime, saying he has been blackmailed and threatened, once even receiving a parcel containing a bloodstained hatchet.
“Police told me not to move without guards,” he told reporters. “Police seem to believe that there is an actual danger of attack.”
On Thursday, the South Korean government said the North Korean leader ordered preparations for terrorist attacks on the South, and they could be directed at North Korean defectors as well as anti-North activists and South Korean government officials.
The North’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, tasked with intelligence operations, has already begun preparations for disruptive acts, including terrorist attacks using poison or abducting South Koreans, according to the NIS.
High-ranking government officials working in national security and foreign affairs are also included on the list of the North’s targets, according to some reports. They include Presidential National Security Office Chief Kim Kwan-jin, Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo, Defense Minister Han Min-koo and Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se.
Cheong Wa Dae said Friday that its National Security Council (NSC) is rigorously managing scenarios related to terrorist attacks.
“The NSC is thoroughly in control of every situation related to terrorism,” said presidential spokesman Jung Youn-kuk.
But Jung refused to comment on whether high-ranking government officials are the target of the North’s terrorism plans.
The warning comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula over the totalitarian state’s Jan. 6 nuclear test and Feb. 7 long-range rocket launch.
Also on Friday, Rep. Lee Cheol-woo of the ruling Saenuri Party, who belongs to the Assembly Intelligence Committee, noted, “There is a great possibility that the repressive state could launch a cyber attack in March or April.”
He cited the pattern of the regime’s previous actions ― it staged cyber attacks for one or two months following previous nuclear tests.
The North paralyzed networks of South Korean broadcasters and banks through a cyber attack in March 2013 after conducting its third nuclear test earlier that year in February.
Police said earlier this week that North Korean hackers sent massive amounts of spam e-mails to South Korean public organizations last month, the latest in a series of cyber attacks against the South.
Meanwhile, Seoul is considering establishing an additional national-level anti-terrorism unit as part of its efforts to address rising concerns over Pyongyang's possible terrorist attacks, according to a military official.
"As we prepare for the possibility of North Korea's terrorist attacks, we plan to focus on strengthening anti-terrorism organizations," the official said, declining to be named. "One of the measures we are considering includes designating an additional national-level anti-terrorism unit."
Currently, the Special Warfare Command and the Chemical, Biological and Radiological Defense Command run separate strategic units to counter terrorism.
Over the past few decades, the North has staged terrorist attacks against the South, including the 1987 midair bombing of a Korean Air flight that killed all 115 people aboard.
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