Seoul prepares citizens for terror from North

SEOUL - South Korean intelligence says North Korea is threatening terrorist attacks against the South and its citizens.

In a rare public advisory yesterday, Seoul's National Intelligence Service warned South Korean citizens in China and Southeast Asia to be on their guard.

The service said the attacks might occur in retaliation for the recent airlift of a large group of North Korean refugees.

South Korea secretly organised the airlift of more than 460 North Korean refugees last month from a country activists said was Vietnam.

"North Korea is threatening our country with terrorism in retaliation," the spy agency said.

Its warning follows a barrage of verbal attacks by the North accusing the South of premeditated abduction and terrorism against its people.

South Korea denied the accusation, saying the airlift was a humanitarian act and that Seoul was bound by law to accept any North Korean seeking asylum.

"We are advising heightened vigilance in view of the refugees' arrival and the North's reaction to it," a spokesman at the spy agencysaid.

South Korea blames the North for a bombing in Myanmar in 1983 that killed 17 South Koreans, including senior Cabinet officers and the 1987 bombing of a Korean Air flight off the coast of Myanmar with 115 passengers and crew members on board.

The spokesman said the warning was not based on specific indications of attacks but was prompted by the level of the North's public threat.

North Korea's state media have increased rhetorical attacks against South Korean authorities in recent weeks to match its regular dose of condemnation of the United States.

The United States Air Force said a squadron of American F-15E fighter jets capable of hitting air and ground targets would be deployed in South Korea next month on a training mission.

The North has accused the US of preparing to launch a military strike against it and start a nuclear war.

The Americans said the deployment of the F-15Es would be for training and involve getting to know the region's geography.

- REUTERS