SOUTH KOREA: TERRORIST THREATS TO THE SEOUL OLYMPICS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90T00100R000201120001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 31, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 3, 1988
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/07/31 : CIA-RDP90T00100R000201120001-7
Central Intelligence Agency
DATE
4 /1158-40014c1
DOC NO 6-`,1. fi) c(-8-zottia.
OIR
P PD
Washington. D. C.20505
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
03 May 1988
South Korea: Terrorist Threats to the Seoul Olympics
Summary
P'Vongyang's public threats against the 1988 Seoul Summer
Olympics and its sabotage of a South Korean airliner last November clearly
point to North Korea as the greatest challenge to the security of the
Games. Several other groups have the capability and perhaps the
motivation to stage a terrorist incident in Seoul--including the Japanese
Red Army, Palestinian groups, and terrorist organizations with ties to Iran.
Seoul is taking extensive precautions to prevent violence and agent
infiltrations, but international air links to South Korea remain vulnerable to
sabotage or to serving as transportation for terrorists.
This memorandum was prepared by Office of East Asian Analysis,
Office of Global Issues, and Counterterrorist Center.
Information available as of 25 April 1988 was used in its preparation. Comments and
queries are welcome and may be directed to the Chief, Security and Technology Issues
Branch, Northeast Asia Division, OEA,
EA M 88-20049
GI M 88-20042
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The Obvious Threat: North Korea
We believe that violence perpetrated by North Korea is the highest security threat
to the Games. In the mid-1960s, the North executed a violent campaign against the
South, and in the 1970s and early 1980s P'yongyang sponsored assassination attempts
against South Korean leaders (see appendix). In 1984, North Korea began focusing on a
broad-gauged effort to open dialogue with the South to appear eager to alter the
dangerous military standoff on the peninsula. Even so, P'yongyang continued to publicly
warn of the dan ers to the Olympics if its efforts to arrange a cohosting deal with Seoul
failed.
In November 1987 the North moved from rhetoric to action when it sabotaged a
Korea Air Lines jet over the Andaman Sea near Burma. A confession by the captured
saboteur left no doubt of P'yongyang's responsibility and identified disrupting the
Olympics as its motivation. More recently, P'yongyang issued public--though ,
veiled--warnings to its allies not to participate in the Games, citing the potential threat
to foreigners, which heightens our concern that North Korea may attempt additional
violence.
If the North chooses this course, it will have several options for disrupting the
Games by fostering an impression that Seoul is unsafe. More airliner sabotage would
heighten concern over the safety of travel to Seoul. The North could infiltrate agents
into South Korea by sea--or use its existing agent network--to carry out terrorist
incidents around Seoul. Or it could raise tension by creating incidents along the
Demilitarized Zone. The North might also facilitate attacks against Olympic targets by
third-country terrorist groups.
The Threat from Third-Country Groups
Several international terrorist groups, either bankrolled by the North or working
on their own, have the capabilities and perhaps the motivation to disrupt the Summer
Olympics.
Japanese Red Army. Perhaps the most worrisome is the Japanese Red Army
(JRA), which has become increasingly active and apparently has targeted the Games.
When Japanese police arrested the second-ranking member of the group--Osamu
Maruoka--in Japan in November 1987, he was carrying documents discussing plans to
disrupt the Olympics and airline tickets to South Korea. The documents have given us
some clues to the extent of the JRA's capability to conduct terrorism worldwide. The
papers indicate that JRA members were involved, either as active participants or in a
support role, in mortar and car bombing attacks against the US and Japanese Embassies
in Jakarta in 1986 and the US and British Embassies in Rome in 1987. (The
Anti-Imperialist International Brigades (AIIB), which may be a JRA offshoot or cover
name, claimed credit for the attacks.)
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Maruoka may have been planning a trip to Seoul to lay the groundwork for a
terrorist support network. His arrest does not necessarily reduce the threat. The JRA
has issued a communique stating it will retaliate for his seizure. In the past, the group
has carried out attacks specifically aimed at pressuring governments to release its
imprisoned members. We estimate the JRA has 20 to 40 hardcore members, including
some non-Japanese. In addition to ties with to AllB, it has contacts with the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Palestinian Groups. Palestinian groups, which continue to use terrorism to press
their case against Israel, also could pose a threat to the Olympics, as in Munich in 1972.
Attacks by Palestinians outside Israel and the occupied territories have dropped over the
past year, but, when they have occurred, a growing number have been in Asia rather
than "traditional" West European venues.
We judge the most serious Palestinian threat to the Olympics would be from the
Abu Nidal organization. From its inception, the group has demonstrated an ability to
operate beyond the Middle East, having staged armed attacks and bombings in Karachi,
Islamabad, New Delhi, and Bombay. US, Israeli, and moderate Arab interests probably
would be the targets of any operations by Abu Nidal.
Iranian-Connected Groups.
terrorist groups supported by Tehran could use the Games to conduct a
bombing or hostage-taking operation against US, Iraqi, and Saudi or other moderate
Arab targets. Iranian-backed terrorist groups also could act as surrogates for North
Korea, although we view this as a long shot.
Iran has contacts with the North Koreans and assets in South Korea it
could use in terrorist operations. Tehran has an embassy in Seoul, and
several hundred Iranians transit the South weekly. Most apparently come to
shop, but these travelers will be difficult to watch when Seoul is inundated with foreign
dignitaries and visitors for the Games.
Seoul's Security Response
The South Koreans are taking extensive precautions to prevent violence during
the Olympics. The Agency for National Security Planning (NSP)--South Korea's major
intelligence organization--is coordinating security and counterterrorism measures with
the Korean National Police, the South Korean military, and foreign police and security
services. Military and police counterterrorism units, explosive ordnance disposal teams,
and bomb-detection dogs will be positioned in advance at Olympic-related locations
throughout South Korea. Security will be tight at all hotels and Olympic sites. Seoul
will augment military forces to counter any aggressive North Korean action along the
DMZ or South Korea's coastlines.
South Korea also is focusing on preventing terrorist infiltrations via international
airlines. Security in and around Kimpo International Airport in Seoul--where nearly all
scheduled foreign flights to South Korea arrive--is excellent. Disembarking passengers
are subject to extensive immigration and Customs controls. Airport officials have
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tightened checks on passenger belongings, and ordinary items such as toothpaste and
cosmetics are removed and examined. Sniffer dogs are used to locate explosives. This
comprehensive program should make it difficult for terrorist groups to smuggle
hardware into South Korea before or during the Olympics.
Olympic officials are also attempting to sensitize Korea Air Lines and other
carriers with regular flights to Seoul to the need for thorough screening at points of
departure and at stopovers. Nonetheless, we believe this will be the weak link in the
security effort. Although airports have machines capable of detecting weapons made of
metal, devices that can discover explosives made of other materials are still largely in
the development stage, and many airports do not have such sophisticated equipment,
particularly those in the Third World. Consequently, detection of explosive devices often
depends upon time-consuming and personally intrusive hand searches of passengers
and their baggage. Many commercial airlines are reluctant to use these measures
because they slow flight departures. In our view, security will be weakest on Japan Air
Lines commuter flights between Japan and South Korea and commercial flights
originating in or transiting Third World countries.
The increased numbers of commercial charter flights as the Olympics approach
could also offer a particularly good opportunity for terrorists. These flights provide less
security than regularly scheduled flights, with charters sometimes loading passengers
and baggage at locations outside an airport's main security network.
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APPENDIX
During the mid-1960s, North Korea carried out a campaign of violence against
the South. North Korean guerrilla forces, up to company-size in strength, deliberately
sought to engage US and South Korean military forces inside the South. The attacks
were well planned, swiftly executed, and designed to produce heavy casualties. The
campaign of terrorism came to a head in January 1968, when about 30 North Korean
commandos made a bold but unsuccessful attempt to storm the Blue House?the
presidential mansion in Seoul. In late 1968, a 120-man guerrilla force landed on the
east coast of South Korea some 160 kilometers south of the DMZ. They tried to
establish control over several villages and attempted to organize a popularly supported
insurgency. The effort failed, and the entire force was eliminated as it attempted to
return overland to North Korea.
P'yongyang ended this policy of intimidation by the early 1970s, apparently
because it had worked against the North's interests--far from stirring up domestic
unrest, the North's violence had a unifying effect on the South Korean population. Less
blatant forms of violence did not end, however, as the North has since made several
attempts to assassinate South Korean presidents:
? At a cemetery near Seoul in 1970, a North Korean agent was killed when a bomb
he was planting detonated accidentally. The detonation occurred shortly before
President Park Chung Hee was scheduled to arrive for a ceremony.
? In 1974, another North Korean agent fired a pistol at President Park during an
appearance at the National Theater in Seoul. The assassin's shots missed the
president, but killed his wife.
? In 1981, North Korean agents offered two Canadian criminals large sums of
money to assassinate President Chun Doo Hwan when he made an official vist to
the Philippines. The Canadians, however, absconded with the North Korean cash
advances. Some of the meetings with North Korean agents took place in Vienna.
? FVongyang failed again in October 1983, when its agents tried to kill President
Chun during a visit to Rangoon. Eighteen other senior South Korean officials died
when the agents mistakenly triggered their radio-detonated bomb before Chun's
arrival at a ceremony site.
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SOUTH KOREA:
DISTRIBUTION:
TERRORIST THREATS TO THE SEOUL OLYMPICS
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1 ? FRANK C. CARLUCCI, THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, RM 3E880,
1 ? WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, IV, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, RM 3E944,
INTERNAL
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? CHIEF, PPS/DO,
RM 3D01,
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? CHIEF, EA
RM 5D26,
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? CHIEF, OEA/NEA/JAPAN,
RM 4G31,
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? CHIEF, OEA/NEA/KOREA, RM 4G43,
1
? CHIEF, OEA/NEA/STI, RM 4G43,
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? CHIEF, OEA/NEA/DIVISION, RM 4G43,
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? CHIEF, ?EA/CHINA DIVISION, RM 4G20,
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? CHIEF, 0EA/SEA DIVISION, RM 4F24,
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