The US ambassador to South Korea was attacked by an armed assailant on his way to a lecture this morning, South Korea's national news agency Yonhap reported.

Photographs showed Mark Lippert, who presented his credentials as ambassador only in November, bleeding heavily after he was attacked with a razor blade and received injuries to the face and wrist, writes Simon Mundy in Seoul.

Police told Yonhap that they had immediately arrested the alleged attacker, surnamed Kim. They quoted him as saying that his attack was a deed of "terror" motivated by opposition to the US-South Korea joint military exercises that began on Monday, which attracted fierce opposition from North Korea as in previous years. The alleged assailant reportedly shouted "against war" before being taken away in a police car.