‘North Korea planning terror attack’ South Korea claims

KIM Jong-un is planning a series of terror attacks on a wide range of targets against its southern enemy, a spy agency has sensationally claimed.

‘North Korea planning terror attack’

NORTH Korea is planning a series of terror attacks on a wide range of targets against its southern enemy, a spy agency sensationally claims.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service revealed it has received information which indicates

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently ordered preparations for launching “terror” attacks against the country.

Top South Korean officials warn they are taking the threat seriously in the wake of the North’s

recent nuclear test and rocket launch.

In televised remarks, senior South Korean presidential official Kim Sung-woo said North Korea’s spy agency has begun work to implement Kim Jong Un’s order to “muster anti-South terror capabilities that can pose a direct threat to our lives and security”.

He also said the possibility of North Korean attacks “is increasing more than ever” and is pushing for quick passage of an anti-terror bill in parliament.

NORTH KOREA ATTACKS

While it may seem far-fetched to some, an attack by North Korea is not totally implausible.

North Korea has a history of attacks on its southern neighbour including the 2010 shelling on an island that killed four South Koreans.

In 1987 it bombed a South Korean passenger plane that killed all 115 people on board.

But it is impossible to independently confirm claims about any such terror attack preparations with no details about where the information for a terror attack has come from.

A South Korean army K-2 tank fires during a live firing drill at a fire training field as worries about the North grow after its recent nuclear test and rocket launch.

WHO AND WHERE

Seoul’s National Intelligence Service briefed ruling Saenuri Party members on a similar assessment on North Korea’s attack preparations, according to one of the party officials who attended the private meeting.

During the briefing, the NIS, citing studies on past North Korean provocations and other unspecified assessments, said the attacks could target anti-Pyongyang activists, defectors and government officials in South Korea.

Attacks on subways, shopping malls and other public places could also happen, the anonymous official said.

He also quoted the NIS as saying North Korea could launch poisoning attacks on the activists

and defectors, or lure them to China where they would be kidnapped.

The Saenuri official refused to confirm whether the briefing discussed how the information was obtained.

TENSE TIMES

The standoff with North Korea is not expected to ease soon, as Seoul and Washington are in talks to deploy a sophisticated US missile defence system in South Korea that Pyongyang warns would be a source of regional tension.

The allies claim their annual springtime military drills will be the largest ever with South Korea’s defence minister revealing 15,000 US troops will take part, double of the number Washington normally sends.

North Korea claims the drills are in preparation for a northward invasion.

Seoul defence officials also said that they began preliminary talks with the United States earlier

this month regarding deploying the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, which has been opposed by China and Russia.

Tensions between the South Korean army, pictured here during a training drill, remain high.

Opponents claim the system could help US radar spot missiles in other countries.

It comes just two days after the United States flew four stealth F-22 fighter jets over South Korea and reaffirmed it maintains an “iron-clad commitment” to the defence 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 are speculating 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 US mainland.

‘HITLER OF ASIA’

Tensions between the north and south have reached fever pitch in recent days, with one politician even comparing Kim to the “Nazi of Asia”.

Ha Tae-kyung, of the Saenuri Party, described him as a “potential 21st century Hitler with nuclear weapons”.

He told South Korean radio YTN, that it was time President Park Geun-hye came up with a plan to eliminate Kim Jong-un for the “sake of world peace”.

Ha also warned unless something was done to eliminate the growing threat North Korea posed to the world then “Kim Jong-un may be the 21st century’s Hitler with the nuclear weapons in his hands.”

The North Korean military are completely devoted to their leader.

‘HYDROGEN BOMB’

Last month Pyongyang announced that it had carried out a “successful” hydrogen bomb test — its fourth nuclear blast.

Kim even boasted of his success in a handwritten note displayed on national TV.

“Let the world look up to the strong, self-reliant nuclear-armed state,” he wrote.

“Let’s begin the year of 2016 ... with the thrilling sound of our first hydrogen bomb explosion, so that the whole world will look up to our socialist, nuclear-armed republic

and the great Workers’ Party of Korea!”

KIM ‘PUNISHED’

The south’s warnings over North Korea come as US President Barack Obama slapped North Korea with more stringent sanctions for defying the world and pushing forward with its nuclear weapons program.

The launch of a satellite-carrying rocket into space and its fourth underground nuclear test led to worldwide condemnation of the reclusive country.

It also fuelled fears that it is continuing to move toward building an atomic arsenal.

The expanded sanctions are being imposed as the US and China are in delicate negotiations over a UN Security Council resolution on new sanctions.

China, which is North Korea’s most important ally, has raised concerns about measures that could devastate the secretive nation’s economy.

The new measures are intended to deny North Korea the money it needs to develop miniaturised warheads and the long-range missiles required to deliver them.

This image, captured earlier this month from North Korean Central TV Broadcasting Station, shows a document signed the previous day by the country's leader Kim Jong-un authorising the launch of the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite.