Seoul’s spy service says North Korea is preparing attacks

South Korea is in danger of a North Korean terror attack on “public facilities and key infrastructure”, according to intelligence revealed to lawmakers at an emergency government meeting in Seoul Thursday.

The United States has deployed four Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor combat aircraft to South Korea as a reassurance to Seoul and a further warning to Pyongyang in the wake of the North’s recent rocket launch.

The United States often sends powerful warplanes to South Korea during times of tension with North Korea.

Asked if South Korean Chief of the presidential National Security Office Kim Kwan-jin is on the North Korean target list, the spokesman said he has nothing to say.

The Kaesong complex, created in 2004 during a period of rapprochement between the rivals, was the lone exception when South Korea banned all southern trade and investment to North Korea in 2010 in retaliation for the sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors.

US Lt-Gen Terrence O’Shaughnessy, left, deputy commander of the US Forces Korea, and Lee Wang-Geun, commander at South Korea’s Air Force Operations, speak in front of a F-22 stealth fighter during a press briefing on the US F-22 flight over South Korea, at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on Wednesday, February 17 2016.

Lee Chul-woo, a ruling party politician, claimed there was evidence to suggest the order to prepare for terror attacks came from Mr Kim himself, Yonhap reported.

Lu also cited that as China and North Korea are two independent nations, the former’s persuasion of the latter to give up nuclear weapons should not be seen “as an attempt to maintain any control”, the report said.

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

Following the start of the drills previous year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called on his country’s army to prepare for war with the USA and its allies.

The US will send 15,000 troops to the annual computer-simulated “Key Resolve” exercise, the Yonhap news agency quoted Defence Minister Han Min-Goo as saying, up from 3,700 past year.

(Stand-up) “There are concerns that the North’s new threats could create uneasiness in South Korea and beyond, as terrorist acts would affect people in a more direct way than North Korea’s nuclear or missile tests”.

The deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence, or THAAD, is opposed by North Korea, China and Russian Federation.