U.S. Intelligence Suspected of Attack on North Korean Embassy in Madrid

An attack on the North Korean Embassy in Madrid on February 22 coinciding with the Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi is currently under investigation, with many of the United States’ covert action arms under suspicion for having perpetrated this. Unidentified men broke into Pyongyang’s diplomatic mission, tied up the diplomats and held them hostage, seizing computers which reportedly held highly sensitive classified government information. Spain's National Police and the foreign intelligence unit of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) are examining a number of possibilities - with a number of sources reporting that the American intelligence agencies were not only suspected - but that this theory was gaining considerable momentum. 

It was reported that CNI has concluded that the means by which the embassy was attacked resembles the "method of work" of the American intelligence services during their covert overseas operations. The U.S. for its part could have perceived a benefit from gaining access to embassy intelligence, which it may have been unable to do through espionage or cyberattack due to certain  security measures. Alternatively, the operation could have been intended to send a signal to Pyongyang during the summit - that while the country was safe from a direct U.S. attack due to its military strength and potent nuclear deterrent, its interests overseas were vulnerable to attack by America’s vast apparatus of power projection assets. While the perpetrator of the attack remains uncertain, and remains unlikely to be confirmed in future, if Pyongyang believes the U.S. to be the perpetrator it will likely have some implications for their relations and undercut the current thaw in tensions.