Knife-wielding attacker slashes face of US ambassador in South Korea

US Ambassador Mark Lippert was slashed on the face and wrist today by a man wielding a knife with a 25cm blade and screaming that the rival Koreas should be unified, South Korean police said.

Media images showed a stunned-looking Lippert staring at his blood-covered left hand and holding his right hand over a cut on the right side of his face, his pink tie splattered with blood.

The US State Department condemned the attack, which happened at a performing arts center in downtown Seoul as the ambassador was preparing for a lecture about prospects for peace on the divided Korean Peninsula, and said Lippert was being treated at a local hospital and his injuries weren’t life threatening.

YTN TV reported that the suspect – identified by police as 55-year-old Kim Ki-jong – screamed during the attack, “South and North Korea should be reunified.”

A witness, Ahn Yang-ok, the head of the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations, told YTN that Lippert had just been seated for breakfast ahead of the lecture organised by the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation when a man ran toward the ambassador from a nearby table and slashed him with a knife.