NKorea has brazen record of attacking South, though ship sinking still a mystery

North Korea has brazen record of attacking South

SEOUL, South Korea — It is far from clear if North Korea had anything to do with the sinking last month of a navy patrol boat from South Korea that killed at least three dozen sailors and threw the country into mourning.

Still, given Pyongyang’s long history of attacks on its rival, it is not unusual that some in the South are pointing the finger of suspicion toward the heavily armed border.

North Korea has targeted South Korea in many ways since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two sides technically in a state of conflict that marks its 60th anniversary this year.

The South Korean government has been careful not to jump to conclusions and says an ongoing probe — which could take years — will consider all possibilities, including that the ship hit an old mine left over from the Korean War or was struck by a North Korean torpedo.

Initially, there had also been speculation that the 1,200-ton Cheonan may have blown up due to an internal malfunction or possibly struck a reef.

But Yoon Duk-yong, the leader of the investigation, told reporters Friday that an external explosion most likely sank the vessel, which split into two after blowing up March 26 during a routine patrol near the tense maritime border with North Korea.

Fifty-eight crew members were rescued and 38 bodies have been found, most of them Thursday when the ship’s stern was raised from the Yellow Sea off the West coast of the Korean Peninsula. Eight sailors remain missing.

Though the government is publicly taking a wait-and-see approach, analysts in the South say the possibility of the sinking being a direct provocation by the impoverished yet nuclear-armed North cannot be ignored.

“I think there is a chance North Korea did it,” said Yoo Ho-yeol, an expert on the country at Korea University in Seoul, citing Pyongyang’s history of attacks and the stronger hand it possesses now that it has nuclear weapons. “But proof is insufficient.”

North Korea, which generally speaks to the outside world through its state media, has so far been silent on the incident.

One thing, though, is clear: When it comes to attacking South Korea, the North has a rap sheet going back decades, from conventional and covert military assaults to bold and deadly terrorist plots.

Two incidents in the 1980s when North Korea was still led by founder Kim Il Sung stand out for their brazenness — the downing of a South Korean jetliner and an attempt to decapitate the South Korean leadership on a visit to Myanmar.

North Korean agents carried out a bombing during a 1983 trip to the Southeast Asian country by South Korea’s then-President Chun Doo-hwan. Chun, a former army general and staunch anti-communist, escaped unhurt, but 21 others died, including four Cabinet ministers.

In 1987, a pair of North Koreans planted a bomb on a Bangkok-bound Korean Air jetliner during a stopover in Abu Dhabi. The device later went off near Myanmar and killed all 115 people on board.

One of the agents was captured and brought to South Korea, where she said the attack was ordered by North Korean leaders to scare off attendance at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

North Korea denied any role, and countered that the bombing was a political ploy by the South Korean government to win December 1987 presidential elections.

North Korea has also carried out attacks directly on South Korean soil.

In 1968, elite communist commandos managed to infiltrate Seoul and attempted a daring assault on nothing less than the seat of South Korean power — the hillside presidential Blue House — to assassinate then-President Park Chung-hee. South Korea repelled the attack, killing most of the 31 North Koreans who participated.

Park, a former general and staunchly anti-North, narrowly escaped with his life in 1974 when a North Korean from Japan opened fire at a speech the president was giving at a national theater in downtown Seoul. Park’s wife was killed.

The Cheonan sank in waters long disputed between the two countries, and the location has also been the scene of attacks and clashes over the years.

In January 1967 the Dangpo, a South Korean naval ship patrolling in the Yellow Sea near the disputed border, was attacked by North Korean artillery. Thirty-nine of the 79 sailors on board were killed and 40 were injured.

More recently, battles have taken place on a smaller scale. In a 1999 shootout, a North Korean ship sank and about 20 to 30 of its sailors are believed to have died.

In 2002, a North Korean navy ship crossed the maritime border and sank a South Korean patrol boat, leaving six sailors dead. The North Korean casualty toll was unknown.

And in November last year, South Korea said one North Korean died after a brief exchange of fire between the two sides in the same area.

Carl Baker, an expert on Korean military relations at the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank in Honolulu, said that if North Korea was involved in the Cheonan sinking, it was probably an accident due to something like a drifting mine.

He said a torpedo attack — though not impossible — is highly unlikely and even if it happened would have presumably been an unsanctioned act not planned by the country’s leadership, which would be loathe to anger key ally and investor China.

“The mindset hasn’t changed,” he said, referring to the North’s stance of wanting to harm the South — it’s archenemy. “But the overall intent is to avoid a major confrontation because in that situation the North realizes it can’t win in that kind of a fight.”

Associated Press writers Kwang-tae Kim, Hyung-jin Kim and Sangwon Yoon contributed to this report.