BAGHDAD, 22 June 2004 — Four US soldiers were gunned down yesterday as a South Korean hostage faced death after Seoul rejected a demand from his kidnappers not to send troops to Iraq.
A videotape delivered to wire services showed four Americans in uniform lying dead in what appeared to be a walled compound in Ramadi, a hotbed of resistance 100 km west of Baghdad. One of the Americans was slumped in the corner of the wall.
The bodies had no flak vests — mandatory for US troops operating in contested areas — and at least one was missing a boot. One field pack was left open next to a body as if the attackers had looted the dead before fleeing.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, coalition deputy operations chief, confirmed the killings but gave few details. He said a US quick reaction force found the bodies after the troops failed to report to their headquarters as required.
In Seoul, the South Korean government said it would go ahead with plans to send another 3,000 troops to Iraq despite a threat by an extremist group to kill a South Korean man seen begging for his life on a videotape broadcast Sunday night by the Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeera.
“Korean soldiers, please get out of here,” the man, Kim Sun-il, screamed in English. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I know that your life is important, but my life is important.”
Kim, 33, who works for a trading company in Baghdad, was believed to have been kidnapped about 10 days ago. The kidnappers claimed to be from the Monotheism and Jihad group led by Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who is believed to have ties to Al-Qaeda.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon called on the kidnappers to release Kim immediately and unconditionally, and pledged to push ahead with plans to send troops to the war-ravaged country.
“We are very much disturbed and shocked at the news of the kidnapping of a Korean national. We do not understand why this has happened,” he said.
The kidnapper threatened late Sunday to behead Kim in 24 hours.
Ban would not be drawn on whether Seoul was prepared to negotiate with the hostage takers, but said the government was working to find a solution.
Once the deployment is complete, South Korea will be the largest coalition partner after the United States and Britain. South Korea already has 600 military medics and engineers in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriyah.
South Korean medics in Nassiriyah suspended free medical services to Iraqi patients to protest the kidnapping, the country’s Yonhap news agency said. Hundreds of protesters attended a candlelight vigil in Seoul late yesterday to demand the government reverse its decision to send soldiers to Iraq.
At his news conference, Kimmitt said weekend airstrikes in Fallujah killed key figures in Zarqawi’s network. He declined to specify whether anyone killed in the strikes came from abroad.
— Additional input from agencies
