More Held Hostage in Iraq Than S. Korean Employee: Company Head
BAGHDAD, June 21 (Yonhap) -- The head of a South Korean trade company in Iraq whose employee has been abducted by an insurgent group here claimed Monday that there may be as many as 10 other abduction victims held by the Arab insurgent group.
In a telephone interview with the Yonhap News Agency, Kim Choon-ho, president of Gana General Trading Co., said that several local employees of U.S.-based security firm Halliburton, accompanying the South Korean worker at the time of abduction, were kidnapped along with his South Korean employee, Kim Sun-il.
"After contacting the U.S. military on June 17 to find out why Kim Sun-il, who went on a business trip to the U.S. military camp Ribgee, located about 200 kilometers from Baghdad, did not return, I was told that he had already left (the U.S. installation) and found out that he had been kidnapped along with an Iraqi employee," Kim said.
"I also understand that several third-country employees of the U.S. security firm Kellogg, Brown and Root (an affiliate of Halliburton) who were accompanying Kim at the time had also been kidnapped." The South Korean businessman said he tried to undertake his own negotiations with the kidnappers, who claim to belong to an al-Qaida-linked terrorist group, the Tawhid wa al-Jihad.
"We are taking up negotiations with the kidnappers on the release (of hostages) by dispatching an Iraqi employee to the Fallujah area," Kim said. "We heard from the kidnappers that Kim Sun-il was safe." Kim also said that his Iraqi employee who engaged in negotiation talks with the kidnappers reported seeing "European journalists and other security firm workers" being held hostage along with Kim.
Kim said the number of those being held hostage would exceed 10 when considering the number of other hostages claimed by his Iraqi worker.
10 foreigners taken hostage in Iraq
SEOUL, June 21 (Xinhuanet) -- About 10 foreigners are being held hostage along with the South Korean kidnap victim by an armed Arab insurgent group, South Korea 's news agency Yonhap reported on Monday.
The report quoted Kim Choon-ho, head of Gana General Trading Co., at which the South Korean kidnap victim Kim Sun-il has been working, as saying that there were some 10 other foreign figures, including "some European journalists and American employees of a U.S.-based security firm," being held hostage by the insurgent group.
The Arab satellite TV network Al-Jazeera reported on Sunday that an al-Qaida-linked insurgent group kidnapped a South Korean man in Iraq and threatened to behead him if the Seoul government does not scrap its decision to deploy 3,660 troops to northern Iraq.
South Korea already has 660 army engineers and medics operatingin southern Iraq since early last year. They will be moved to northern Iraq in July to prepare for 3,000 more S. Korean troops to be deployed there by October.
The deployment would make South Korea the largest US coalition partner in Iraq after Britain.
Kim Sun-il, a 33-year-old S. Korean national, has been working as an interpreter for Gana General Trading Co. since his arrival in Iraq on June 15 last year. He was held hostage on June 17 whiletraveling aboard a truck with one of his Iraqi fellow workers moving from the US military camp in Ribgee to Fallujah.
President Roh Moo-hyun said Monday that his government will not change its plan to send additional troops to Iraq, despite thekidnapping of a South Korean man in the war-torn Middle East country.
"We need to make efforts to explain (to Iraqis) that our troopswill focus on reconstruction efforts without conducting hostile activities against Iraqi people," presidential spokesman Yoon Tai-young quoted Roh as saying.
Implying that the kidnappers and hostages are in the city of Fallujah?