i just feel really good. the allege add tacker remains in custody, facing charges of violating korean national security law and attempted murder. the man s believed to have been making some sort of protest against the u.s. and south korea holding joint military exclusives but honestly who cares. once you re stabbing people in the face nobody cares about why you re doing it. the state department may add further security for the embassy and embassy personnel. the american ambassador to south korea attacked just viciously last week mark lippert is well enough to have been released from the hospital today. more ahead. stay with us.
the u.s. ambassador of south korea, mark lippert, 42 years old, he has not been on the job very long. he s been attacked. the assault happened a few hours ago. so evening time here on the east coast in the u.s. but it s tomorrow morning, thursday morning in seoul. ambassador lippert was assaulted when giving a speech at a breakfast in seoul. he was slashed on or near his face with some kind of blade, possibly a razor. you can see that he s bloody in these pictures. the suspect in the attack was arrested. he was apparently tackled by audience members who were attending mr. lippert s speech after he attacked the ambassador. local media in south korea are reporting that the suspected attacker is an activist against u.s. south korean military cooperation. he may also be some sort of activist in favor of the unification of south korea and north korea. we do not have a lot of detail on that at this point. after this troubling attack,
this happened. they said that there were no special requests from the u.s. embassy as the ambassador was there, but they knew this event was happening, and they were able to detain the man quickly because they had police inside as well. just looking from my own personal point of view a couple of weeks ago i went to a dinner with ambassadors and security in this country is not particularly tight. i was able to walk in without my bag being searched without a metal detector, and then was actually sitting next to the italian ambassador. security here even though this is a country which is technically at war with north korea, it is considered a very safe country. a breakfast event downtown seoul is not considered to be a high risk area for any ambassador even the u.s. ambassador. people here even members of the public would have more access to ambassadors than they would in other conflict zones and certainly than they would in the united states. for the first time we re seeing video of th
service representative. i think that s a really poor decision. the profile of the country alone, along with the ambassador, creates a threat profile significant enough to warrant at least one agent. the fact that this guy reportedly attacked the ambassador at least vocally saying something about joint military drills between south korea and the united states whether or not this guy is disturbed in other ways is that a i asked the ambassador hill about this a little bit. how controversial a sentiment is that there? how controversial are these exercises these days? people on the left are critical of the alliance some who are openly sympathetic to north korea and the kind of emotional issue, emotionally charged issue, division of the korean peninsula since the korean war, and there are people
large basset hound and many south korean children coming up to him to play with the dog. a guy that really likes to get out and about, and i don t think you can emphasize enough in terms of his expertise, asia policy was his expertise is his expertise, and he has been very excited about being ambassador there. obviously, that you know whether or not he will be able to continue to walk around without some sort of close protection we ll have to see. i understand top u.s. military officials in south korea, they obviously have been briefed about the attack as well. absolutely anderson. four star army general curtis scalpperotti the top u.s. military official in south korea briefed a short time ago about the incident. the general right now in charge of running the u.s.-south korean military drills. these are fairly routine exercises. of course it has set off a lot of rhetoric in north korea, which is claiming, of course,