Al Qaeda members have beheaded its South Korean hostage, Al-Jazeera television reported Tuesday. The South Korean foreign ministry issued a statement confirming the report.
His body was found by the U.S. military between Baghdad and Fallujah, west of the capital, at 5:20 p.m. Iraq time, said South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Shin Bong-kil. Al-Jazeera did not say when Kim was killed.
Earlier this week, al Qaeda kidnappers threatened to behead the hostage unless Seoul withdraws forces from the war-torn country. Reports on Tuesday morning claimed they have agreed to give additional time for talks on his fate.
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 South Korean man had told him the deadline for talks had been extended.
In a related development, a South Korean lawmaker said earlier Tuesday that religious leaders in Iraq have confirmed that the South Korean held hostage is "alive and well."
Rep. Kim Sung-gon of the ruling Uri Party said in a telephone interview with Yonhap News Agency that he received an e-mail from Iraqi religious leaders affiliated with the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP) who said they met the hostage. They reported he is healthy and they are doing all they can for his release.
On its part, Seoul has rejected the demand to pull out troops and scrap plans to dispatch 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 asked for cooperation from around the world to help free the hostage.
A special task force established to deal with the crisis met early Tuesday.
A group Washington accuses of links to al Qaeda set a Monday night deadline when Kim Sun-il was shown in a video tape on Al Jazeera.
On Tuesday the hostage was shown in videotape aired by Al Jazeera kneeling, blindfolded and wearing an orange jumpsuit.
The tape showed five hooded men standing behind him, one reading a statement and gesturing with his right hand. Another captor had a big knife slipped in his belt.
One of the masked men said the message was intended for the Korean people. "This is what your hands have committed. Your army has not come here for the sake of Iraqis, but for cursed America."
Al-Jazeera aired a videotape Sunday showing the South Korean hostage begging for his life and pleading with his government to withdraw forces from Iraq.
Elsewhere, the United States launched an airstrike Tuesday in Fallujah on a safehouse used by followers of Jordanian activist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the U.S. military said.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S-led occupation's deputy chief of operations, said the strike involved precision weapons to "target and destroy" the safehouse and was based on "multiple confirmations of actionable intelligence."
"Wherever and whenever we find elements of the Zarqawi network, we will attack them," he said.
At least four people were killed and six were wounded.
Meanwhile, in a separate development, a US soldier was killed in a mortar attack in northern Baghdad, which left six other soldiers and one contractor wounded, according to the US military Tuesday.
The attack took place at around 6 a.m. (GMT) Monday, according to a US military statement. (Albawaba.com)
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
