Korea gets Iraq Hostage Ultimatum

[Guest Lottie]

Korea gets Iraq hostage ultimatum

The deadline expires at sunset on Monday

Islamic militants in Iraq have threatened to execute a South Korean hostage within 24 hours.

A video message called on South Korea to withdraw its armed forces from Iraq, three days after it said it would increase its troops there.

In Seoul, officials held emergency talks and said that although they would seek the man's release there would be no change in the deployment plan.

The militants are also holding 10 other foreigners, according to one report.

The South Korean hostage's employer told Yonhap news agency that the foreigners included at least one European journalist and some people working for American firms.

Deadline

In the video released by the militants, Kim Sun-il, a 33-year-old translator working for a company that supplies the US army, screams: "Korean soldiers, please get out of here. I don't want to die. My life is important"

The video was broadcast on the Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera, which said that it had arrived in an unmarked package at the station's Baghdad office.

The two-minute tape showed the hostage surrounded by armed men wearing masks.

"We ask you to withdraw your forces from our land and not to send any more troops, and if not we'll send you this Korean's head," said one of the men.

The tape said that the 24-hour deadline would expire at sunset on Monday.

A banner identified the group as Jamaat al-Tawhid and Jihad, which is led by a leading al-Qaeda member, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Last month, the same group beheaded an American hostage, Nick Berg, and it has been responsible for a number of other attacks, including the killing of Iraqi Governing Council head Ezzedine Salim.

Continued here.

Edited June 21, 2004 by Lottie

[bathory]

i don't get it, they know they aren't going to get what they want....yet insist on killing hostages...its almost like these guys are there just to kill people and are trying to shift the blame onto western countries?

[Naveed]

If only they were worried that "Northmen" would kill them like they were thousands of years ago.

[Fluffybunny]

I think this one backfired, SK just commited to add 3000 more troops to the task...

Ooopsie...

[tigger]

it also goes to show you just how gutless these 'extremists' are when they cover their faces.... must be soo very ashamed of themself, their culture, their country, what they are doing etc etc ..... to not be able to do this.... either that, or they are camera shy.....

i can't believe that a human, of this very day and age, could still sink so low as to do what a lot of ppl are doing now ( i am not blaming the ppl of a whole country by the way, before ppl start to argue ) so many are to blame of this war, and until they pull their fingers out of their ars*s nothing will resolve

[bathory]

I think this one backfired, SK just commited to add 3000 more troops to the task...

heh, you'd think they'd figure out that if they gave the impression that all was well and that they had been defeated, people would ignore them, the troops would pull out and iraq would be ripe for the taking