U.S. Ambassador to South
Korea, Mark Lippert, was injured in a knife attack ahead of a scheduled speech
about the U.S.-South Korea alliance, today Thursday.
The knife attack that injured the Ambassador is the latest act of political violence in a
deeply divided country where some protesters portray their causes as matters of
life and death.
Washington, which backed
the South during the 1950-53 Korean War against the communist North, still
stations nearly 30,000 troops there and holds annual military drills with
Seoul. That's something anti-U.S. activists view as a major obstacle to their
goal of an eventual reunification of the rival Koreas.
Purported U.S.
interference in Korean affairs appeared to be the main grievance of the man
police named as the assailant, Kim Ki-jong, 55, who has a long history of
anti-U.S. protests.
"South and North
Korea should be reunified," Kim shouted as he slashed Lippert with a
25-centimeter (10-inch) knife, police and witnesses said.
The attack left a gash on Lippert's face that started
under his cheekbone and extended diagonally across his cheek toward his
jawbone. He received 80 stiches to close the 11-centimeter (4-inch) wound,
Chung Nam-sik of Severance Hospital told reporters.
Lippert, 42, also had surgery on his arm to
repair damage to tendons and nerves and was in stable condition at the
hospital.
About nine hours after the
attack, Lippert posted on his Twitter account that he was "doing well and
in great spirits" and would be back "ASAP" to advance the
U.S.-South Korean alliance.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, in Saudi Arabia
for meetings with regional leaders, said the attack would not reduce America's
resolve in pursuing its interests.
"The United States of
America will never be intimidated or deterred by threats or by anybody who
harms any American diplomats," he said.
The State Department said
it could not speculate on a motive at this time, and that South Korean
President Park Geun-hye had called Lippert in the hospital to express her
condolences.
Kim is well-known among police and activists as one of
a hard-core group of protesters willing to use violence to highlight their
causes. Such protesters often speak of their actions in terms of a war, of a
struggle to the death.
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert leaves after he
was slashed in the face by an unidentifi …
Kim told police that he attacked
Lippert to protest U.S.-South Korean military drills that started Monday —
exercises that the North has long maintained are preparations for an invasion.
Kim said the drills, which Seoul and Washington say are purely defensive,
ruined efforts for reconciliation between the two Koreas, officials at Seoul's
Jongno police station said in a televised briefing.
North Korea's state-controlled media
later crowed that Kim's "knife slashes of justice" were "a
deserved punishment on war maniac U.S." and reflected the South Korean
people's protests against the U.S. for driving the Korean Peninsula to the
brink of war because of the joint military drills.
Police didn't consider the possibility that Kim, who has ties to the Korean
Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation, which hosted the breakfast meeting
where Lippert was attacked, would show up for the event, according to a Seoul
police official who didn't want to be named, citing office rules.
U.S. ambassadors have security details,
but their size largely depends on the threat level of the post. Seoul is not
considered to be a particularly high threat post despite its proximity to the
North Korean border. It's not clear how many guards Lippert had, but they would
have been fewer than the ambassadors in most of the Mideast.
Seoul's Foreign Ministry said it was
the first time a foreign ambassador stationed in modern South Korea had been
injured in a violent attack.
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