If two North Korean female agents are responsible for the murder of Kim Jong-Nam, it would be the latest in a long history of planned assassinations and attacks by the secretive state.
The North Korean leader's estranged half-brother was reportedly poisoned in a targeted killing at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia on Monday as he waited to catch a flight to Macau.
:: Yi Han-Yong, a nephew of Kim Jong-Nam's mother Song Hye-Rim - a South Korean-born actress who is believed to have been a mistress of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il - was shot dead in February 1997 outside his home in Bundang, Seongnam. The two assailants were never caught.
He had been living there since he defected to the South in 1982 and had published a memoir revealing details of the Kims' private lives. That book is believed to have been the trigger for the killing.
:: South Korean diplomat Choi Duk-Keun was bludgeoned to death in Vladivostok, a port city in Russia, in October 1996.
South Korean media reports said he was killed to avenge the deaths of 25 North Korean commandos who died when their vessel ran aground in the South.
:: Korean Air flight 858 was flying from Baghdad to Seoul on 29 November 1987 when it exploded over the Andaman Sea, killing all 115 people on board.
The two bombers - a man and woman - were traced to Bahrain where the male agent committed suicide, but the other, Kim Hyon-Hee, was captured and brought to Seoul and confessed the bombing had aimed to hamper the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
:: North Korean undercover agents killed 21 people including four South Korean cabinet ministers in a bomb attack in Rangoon, Myanmar, in October 1983, which was intended to kill then South Korean president Chun Doo-Hwan. However, the device exploded before the president arrived.
Three North Korean agents fled the scene, one was killed and two others were captured by Myanmar authorities.
:: In January 1968 a team of 31 North Korean commandos attempted to assassinate then South Korean president Park Chung-Hee, but were stopped some 100 metres from the presidential Blue House.
A gun battle erupted and more than 90 South Koreans were killed including many civilians on a bus. There was a further failed attempt to kill Mr Park in 1974.
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