U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert leaves after he was slashed in the face by an unidentified assailant at a public forum in central Seoul March 5, 2015. Lippert was attending a breakfast forum in central Seoul when a man attacked him, slashing him in the face, a witness at the event told Reuters. REUTERS/Yonhap

By James Pearson and Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert underwent two-and-a-half hours of surgery after he was slashed in the face by a Korean nationalist in an attack at a breakfast forum in Seoul on Thursday to discuss Korean reunification.

Lippert, 42, was bleeding from deep wounds to his face and wrist but was able to walk after the attack. Doctors said later his condition was stable after "very successful" surgery that required 80 stitches in his face.

The assailant was caught and identified by police as 55-year-old Kim Ki-jong. In 2010, Kim tried to attack the Japanese ambassador to South Korea by throwing a piece of concrete and was given a suspended jail term, according to police.

The attack was a protest against joint military exercises by South Korean and U.S. troops, which Kim said interfered with reconciliation between North and South Korea, according to police following an interrogation.

Police are considering whether to charge him for attempted homicide, a police official involved in the case said.

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Security personnel detain Kim Ki-jong, a member of a pro-Korean unification group who attacked the U …

Witnesses and police said Kim used a small fruit knife in the attack, which took place in a government arts center across the street from the heavily guarded U.S. embassy on the South Korean capital's main ceremonial thoroughfare.

"We strongly condemn this act of violence," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

U.S. President Barack Obama called Lippert to wish him a speedy recovery, a White House official said.

The assailant was dressed in traditional Korean clothing and shouted that North and South Korea should be reunited just before he attacked Lippert. He also shouted that he opposed "war exercises", a reference to the annual joint U.S.-South Korean military drills that began this week.

Kim visited North Korea eight times from 2006 to 2007, where he planted trees near the border city of Kaesong, a South Korean Ministry of Unification official said.

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Kim Ki-jong, a member of a pro-Korean unification group who attacked the U.S. ambassador to South Ko …

"I carried out an act of terror," Kim shouted as he was pinned to the floor by people at the event.

Kim said while in police custody he had acted alone. South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that Kim also said he was part of a group that had cut and burned a U.S. flag on the embassy grounds in Seoul in 1985.

Kim is a member of the group that supports Korean unification that hosted the event, police said. He has also staged one-man protests against Japan over disputed islands known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese, and, according to his blog, he led a protest outside a U.S. army base in Seoul last November.

"The guy comes in ... He yells something, goes up to the ambassador and slashes him in the face," witness Michael Lammbrau of the Arirang Institute think-tank told Reuters.

Doctors at Yonsei University's Severance Hospital said they treated Lippert for an 11-cm (4 inches) gash on the right side of his face and a puncture wound on his left wrist, causing nerve damage that was repaired. He will be hospitalized for three or four days, they said.

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Police patrol in front of U.S. embassy (R) in central Seoul March 5, 2015. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

"Doing well&in great spirits!," Lippert tweeted after his surgery.

North Korea's official KCNA news agency described the attack as "deserved punishment for the warmongering United States", calling it "the knife of justice" that it said reflected the anger of South Koreans opposed to the military exercises involving South Korean and U.S. forces.

'WRESTLED TO THE GROUND'

Police were at the venue as part of routine operations but not at the request of the U.S. embassy or the organizer, a police official said.

Lammbrau said Kim shouted about Korean independence while he was being restrained. "It sounded like he was anti-American, anti-imperialist, that kind of stuff," he said.

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U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert leaves after he was slashed in the face by Kim Ki-jong, …

"The ambassador fought him from his seat ... There was a trail of blood behind him," Lammbrau said.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye, speaking in the United Arab Emirates, called it an "attack on the South Korea-U.S. alliance".

Known for his open, informal style, Lippert is active on Twitter and can often be seen walking his basset hound, Grigsby, in Seoul. His wife recently gave birth to a son, who was given a Korean middle name.

Thursday's event was hosted by the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation. The group later issued a statement in which it condemned the attack and apologized to the governments of the United States and South Korea.

The annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises routinely provoke an angry response from North Korea, which denounces them as a preparation for war.

A South Korean defense ministry spokesman said the drills, due to run for eight weeks, would continue as planned.

Lippert was a U.S. Senate aide to Obama and served in the U.S. Navy in Afghanistan and Iraq, winning the Bronze Star. He was chief of staff for former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel before taking up his post in Seoul in November.

(Additional reporting by Sohee Kim, Seungyun Oh and Brian Kim in SEOUL and Ian Simpson, Roberta Rampton and Peter Cooney in WASHINGTON; Writing by Jack Kim and Tony Munroe; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Concern mounted over the fate of civilians in Tikrit where Iraqi forces were trying to trap Islamic State group jihadists on the third day of a huge offensive to retake the city.

Around 30,000 security forces and allied fighters launched Monday the biggest anti-IS ground operation yet in Iraq, closing in on Tikrit from at least three directions.

A senior commander said operations were focused on cutting supply lines of weapons and reinforcements to the jihadists, who seized the city since June.

The next step will be to "surround the towns completely, suffocate them and then pounce on them," Lieutenant General Abdel Amir al-Zaidi told AFP.

On Wednesday, the United States warned the offensive must not fuel sectarian tensions.

"It is important... that this operation should not be used as an excuse or as cover for individuals taking sectarian-motivated retribution," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

"That would tear at the fabric of the country, and weaken the ability of the Iraqis to confront this threat to their country."

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US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey appears before a Senate Armed Services …

Troops have still not retaken Ad-Dawr to the south and Al-Alam to the north, but some units were already on the edge of the city, military sources said.

Zaidi said the operation had already secured areas further out in Salaheddin province and was forcing IS fighters to regroup in urban areas.

"The first phase of the battle to liberate Salaheddin was successfully completed -- and in record time -- by clearing the areas in the east of the province," he said.

The government advance has been slowed by car bombs, roadside bombs and sniper fire, as IS fighters retreated to urban positions but seemed unable to fight back in open areas.

- Revenge killings -

Government forces, Shiite militias and volunteer units have been supported by Iraqi jets and helicopters, as well as Iran.

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Some 30,000 Iraqi troops and militia are taking part in the offensive to retake the northern city of …

"This is the most overt conduct of Iranian support," General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday.

"Frankly, it would only be a problem if it resulted in sectarianism."

But sectarian-fuelled revenge killings have been a feature of past operations and rights groups expressed concern Wednesday.

"We are concerned about the possible recurrence and increase of such attacks in the ongoing operations," Amnesty International's senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera told AFP.

Some leaders and fighters have described the operation as an opportunity to avenge last June's IS massacre of hundreds of new, mostly Shiite, recruits from the nearby base of Speicher.

Some Sunni tribes have been accused of taking part in the massacre, considered the worst of its kind since IS swept through Iraq's Sunni heartland and beyond the same month.

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Iraqi government forces and allied militias wave as they hold the national flag in the northern part …

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Sunday when he announced the Tikrit operation that residents should turn on IS.

Speaking to parliament the next day, he said that "in this battle, there is no neutral party," arguing that anyone choosing neutrality was effectively siding with IS.

"Abadi's statement that there can be no neutrality is worrying," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

- Smugglers -

Many civilians fled the cities conquered by IS last year but the group has recently prevented residents from leaving in some cases.

A former army officer who gave his name as Abu Ahmad fled the town of Al-Alam with his wife and five children Sunday and said he had to pay a smuggler.

"We left with a 'guide', a guy who knows the roads. We were five families, and paid him $1,000 (900 euros) each," he said by telephone from Kirkuk.

The Kurdish-controlled city is only 100 kilometres (62 miles) away but the route they took was a huge loop through the desert that saw them cover eight times that distance.

Tikrit, a Sunni city 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Baghdad on the Tigris River, is of both strategic and symbolic importance in Baghdad's fight against IS.

It is the hometown of late president Saddam Hussein, the remnants of whose Baath party have collaborated with IS.

Commanders have also said Tikrit is a stepping stone towards an even more ambitious operation of retaking second city Mosul to the north, which has been IS's main Iraqi hub.

Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi said after meeting his Turkish counterpart, Ismet Yilmaz, that Ankara had expressed "total willingness to help Iraq in all fields, whether in training, arming or equipment."

Turkish cargo planes delivered military equipment to Baghdad on Tuesday, the latest sign that Ankara-- once accused of allowing IS to operate freely on its soil -- was getting more involved in the fight against it.

Speaking in Baghdad, Yilmaz claimed that "after recent intelligence cooperation, Turkey banned close to 10,000 terrorist suspects from entering Turkey. It also expelled 1,200 suspects."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (Photo: Cihan)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Defence Ministry said on Thursday that large-scale military exercises had started in southern Russia and in disputed territories on Russia's borders.

The exercises involve over 2,000 anti-aircraft troops and 500 items of weaponry and will last until April 10, Interfax news agency reported.

The Defence Ministry said the exercises were taking place in Russia's Southern and North Caucasus Federal Districts, as well as on Russian military bases in Armenia, the Georgian separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Ukraine's Crimea region, which Moscow annexed last year.

They are likely to be viewed in the West as a show of force as relations between Russia and the West are at their most strained since the Cold War because of the Ukraine crisis.

Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of directing a separatist assault in eastern Ukraine with its own troops and weapons. Russia has repeatedly denied those accusations.

At a news conference in Moscow unrelated to the exercises, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov said NATO activities on Russia's borders far exceeded anything the Russian military was undertaking.

"NATO states are using the situation in the south-east of Ukraine as an excuse to ... move forward, closer to Russia's borders," Interfax quoted Antonov as saying.

On Wednesday, a NATO flotilla arrived in the Black Sea to train with ships from the Bulgarian, Romanian and Turkish navies, the defense alliance said.

(The story removes erroneous reference to NATO naval exercises with Russian ships in paragraph 8)

(Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Christian Lowe/Jeremy Gaunt)

Moscow (AFP) - Russian officials on Thursday dismissed a claim by the United States that Moscow has sent "thousands" of troops to fight alongside pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

"These figures, which are plucked out of the air, of course demoralise and disorientate the international community," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.

US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland on Wednesday told a congressional foreign affairs committee that Russia had deployed "thousands and thousands" of troops to Ukraine, although she said she could not give a precise number.

Russia's deputy defence minister Anatoly Antonov also denied the allegation, as well as that by the head of US Army forces in Europe, Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who said that there were 12,000 troops in Ukraine,.

"I know about the statements by Victoria Nuland and the general about those thousands of Russian servicemen allegedly in Ukraine. But why 12,000. Why are they thinking small? Why didn't they say 20,000 why didn't they say 25,000?" Antonov said at a briefing, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.

Moscow denies any involvement in the conflict, which the UN says has left about 6,000 dead in the past year, although it admits some Russian troops may have volunteered to fight with the rebels while on leave from their regular units.

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By Madjiasra Nako

N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - President Idriss Deby of Chad said on Wednesday he knew the whereabouts of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, and called on him to surrender or risk being killed.

Chad's army has waged a series of battles against Boko Haram as part of a cross-border military campaign and has re-taken territory the militant group held in northeastern Nigeria.

"‎Abubakar Shekau must surrender. We know where he is. If he doesn't give himself up he will suffer the same fate as his compatriots," he told a news conference after a regional meeting.

"He was in Dikwa two days ago. He managed to get away but we know where he is. It's in his interests to surrender," Deby said, referring to a town in northeastern Nigeria held by Boko Haram that fell to Chad's army earlier this week.

Nigeria's presidency declined to comment on Deby's remarks and a defense spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Nigeria's military has said on at least three occasions it had killed Shekau, or a man claiming to be him. Each time the leader has resurfaced to issue a fresh jihadist video, one of numerous videos the group has made.

The Chadian army is considered one of the best in the region, backed by a strong air force. It first deployed to help Cameroon fend off Boko Haram and is now pressing southwest into Nigerian territory after capturing the border town of Gambaru last month.

Boko Haram, a Sunni militant group, has killed thousands of people in Nigeria during a six-year insurgency to carve out an Islamic caliphate. It has also staged a series of recent cross- border attacks into Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

On Wednesday, a bomb planted and remotely detonated by Boko Haram militants near the southeastern Niger town of Diffa killed two soldiers and wounded a third, Niger military sources said.

In a separate attack, armed men on a motorbike killed at least two people in Kerawa, in the Far North region of Cameroon, on Tuesday around 2 p.m. (1300 GMT), according to a Cameroon army officer who declined to be identified.

(Additional reporting by Abdoulaye Massalaki in Niamey, Sylvain Andzongo in Yaounde and Julia Payne and Felix Onuah in Abuja; Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Larry King)