Posted on 06/22/2004 5:02:45 AM PDT by kattracks
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Militants threatening to behead a South Korean hostage in Iraq (news - web sites) unless Seoul pulls troops out of the country have agreed to give more time for talks on his fate, an Iraqi mediator told Reuters Tuesday.Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad, a group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who has been accused by Washington of links to al Qaeda, initially set a Monday night deadline when Kim Sun-il was shown pleading for his life in a video tape on Al Jazeera.
But Mohammed al-Obeidi, an Iraqi working for South Korean security firm NKTS in Baghdad, said Iraqi clerics who were in talks with the captors of the 33-year-old had told him the deadline for talks had been extended. Seoul has rejected the demand to pull troops out and scrap plans to send more.
"The kidnappers have said they are willing to negotiate as long as the Korean government stops making provocative remarks and softens its tone on troop deployment," Obeidi said.
South Korea (news - web sites) said Tuesday it did not know for certain Kim was alive. The U.S.-led occupation authority vowed to do all it could to rescue Kim, an Arabic speaker and evangelical Christian who has worked in Iraq for a year as a translator for a Korean firm supplying goods to the U.S. army.
He was seized on June 17 in Falluja, a flashpoint city in the anti-U.S. insurgency 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad.
"We have been asking for cooperation and received information through various channels," Seoul's chief foreign ministry spokesman said. A Seoul commerce ministry spokeswoman said all South Koreans working for firms in Iraq were likely to leave the country by early next month.
Since early April, dozens of foreign hostages have been seized in Iraq, many around Falluja. Most have been freed but at least three have been killed by their captors, including U.S. entrepreneur Nicholas Berg who was beheaded by Zarqawi's group. U.S. officials say Zarqawi himself wielded the knife.
IRAN SEIZES BRITISH BOATS
In another test for U.S.-led authorities, Iran seized three British naval boats and arrested eight British crew, saying they had entered its waters near the Iraqi border.
Britain said it had "lost contact" with military personnel in the narrow Shatt al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq before later announcing they were being held by Iran.
A Defense Ministry spokesman in London said the crew were helping to train Iraqi police. A British diplomat in Tehran said the British government was in close contact with Iranian authorities in the Iranian capital and in London.
Iranian state television said Tehran would prosecute the British sailors, a move likely to fan a minor border incident into a diplomatic crisis. The British government immediately demanded an explanation from Tehran of the report.
Iran opposed the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, but there has been little direct conflict up to now between the Islamic Republic and U.S.-led forces along its western border.
Britain last week joined other European nations in condemning Iran for being less than fully cooperative with inspectors from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.
In the northern city of Mosul, a university dean and her husband were found murdered Tuesday in the latest in a series of killings of high-profile figures in Iraq.
U.S. and Iraqi officials say insurgents are stepping up a campaign of assassinations, bomb attacks and economic sabotage to try to disrupt the formal handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government on June 30.
Sabotage last week halted all oil exports, but officials said they resumed Monday after repairs to one of two pipelines blown up in southern Iraq. The sabotage had choked about 1.6 million barrels of daily exports from Gulf terminals.
One point of controversy surrounding the June 30 handover is what will happen to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and other high-profile Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody.
A senior coalition official said Tuesday the United States plans to turn over legal, but not physical, custody of Saddam and some other prisoners to the Iraqi interim government at its request soon after the June 30 handover.
"Because the Iraqi interim government is not currently in a position to safeguard these detainees, at least in large numbers, our current plan calls for the transfer of legal responsibility over a certain number of high-profile detainees...while physical custody will remain with the multinational force in Iraq," the official told reporters.
What the South Koreans ought to do is say that for every day he remains in captivity, they will send an additional 1000 troops.
FoxNews reported that the SK hostage had been seen alive today. That is good news.
[Gives more time to locate the cockroach nest.]
[A report yesterday said this groups of murderous thugs may have up to 10 hostages.]
I am hoping that this is a sign that they are not going to harm him though I don't know why there would be a negotiator unless S Korea is willing to bend a little. That kind of worries me.
I'm thinking that he bought himself some more time because maybe his captures realize just how mean and effective the SK military is. Remember, SK doesn't have the likes of Kerry, Kennedy et al complaining how they fight this war. The SK army will kick some serious ass if they have to and not think twice about it or give a chit what their media whore have to say.
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