Prepare for ‘gray area’ terror attacks

The threat seems to be related to the North’s apparent preparation of terrorist attacks against South Korean diplomats overseas.

Kim Ho-HongThe author is the director of the North Korea Strategy Center at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. Intelligence authorities are alarmed by signs that North Korea is attempting to harm South Korean diplomatic missions and citizens in China, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The government immediately activated a working group on terrorism countermeasures and raised the alert level for five diplomatic missions — embassies in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and consulates general in Vladivostok and Shenyang — by two notches from “concern” to “alert.” It is the first time in 14 years that the alert level for diplomatic missions has been upgraded due to the North’s terrorist threats since its torpedoing of the Cheonan warship in March 2010.

Along with Cuba, Iran and Syria, North Korea has been on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. The North’s first inclusion on the list in January 1988 was closely linked to South Korea. The North’s bombing of South Korean leaders in Rangoon in 1983 and its bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987 were the direct reasons. Although North Korea was temporarily removed from the list in 2008, it was re-designated in 2017 and has been on the list every year since.

North Korea protested its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism and made public its stance against terrorism whenever there was a chance. When the September 11 terror attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda under the guidance of Osama bin Laden, North Korea immediately signed the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, pointing to the dangers of terrorism. At that time, Pyongyang bragged that it had joined “all anti-terrorism conventions.” After a terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall in March, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un claimed that the country’s stance against terrorism remained unchanged.

Despite such political rhetoric, suspicions were steadily raised that the country is directly and indirectly linked to terrorist attacks. Most recently, Hamas was caught using North Korean-made rockets in its surprise attacks on Israel. The North’s weapons supply to terrorist groups has become an international issue.

In redesignating North Korea in 2017, the United States cited the country’s involvement in assassinations abroad and repeated support for terrorist acts. Circumstantial evidence shows that the recent intelligence reports collected by the South Korean authorities on possible terrorist attacks are highly credible.

Why is North Korea planning terrorist attacks abroad at this time? First, it is likely retaliation for the recent increase in defectors. Last year, 196 North Koreans defected to South Korea, nearly tripling the number of defections in 2022. In particular, the number of elite defectors, including diplomats, reached a record high of 10, the most since 2017.

North Korea has long claimed that South Korean diplomats were involved in the defections of its elites living overseas. After Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea, started public activities in 2016, Pyongyang accused South Korean diplomats of inducing defections and threatened retaliation in a media report three days later. Taking into account this perception, North Korea apparently has an intention to directly harm South Korean diplomats to discourage their activities and issue a warning to its diplomats and trade workers abroad.

Second, there is a possibility that North Korea will choose to make a third type of provocation after Kim Jong-un has defined South Korea as its “primary enemy,” while describing inter-Korean relations as “hostile ones in a state of war” to fuel his country’s animosity toward the South. At this point, the North cannot make direct provocations due to the strong readiness of the South Korea-U.S. alliance and risk retaliatory action, as well as backlash in the international community.

In such a situation, staging provocations in a “gray area,” which deliver a substantial blow but are difficult to trace back to the source, are an attractive option. North Korea would want to push South Korea into a corner by launching surprise attacks overseas. Pyongyang could be tempted to make a move similar to the 1996 murder of a South Korean consular official in Vladivostok. It was clearly an assassination by the North but treated as a simple robbery-murder case by the Russian authorities.

Kim Yo-jong — the North Korean leader’s sister and deputy director of the publicity and information department of the Workers’ Party who is in charge of the country’s South Korea and overseas operations — last week made public a direct threat to proceed with necessary activities more actively as “hostile forces are bluntly making political moves against us.” The threat seems to be related to the North’s apparent preparation of terrorist attacks against South Korean diplomats overseas.

We need to be thoroughly prepared for such acts.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.