South Korea's Yonhap says 10 westerners taken hostage in Iraq

A man identified as South Korean Kim Soong Il, is seen in this image taken from an undated but recent video obtained by Al-Jazeera television station Sunday, June 20, 2004. (AP photo)

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, June 21.

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 operating in 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 while traveling 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 the kidnapping of a South Korean man in the war-torn Middle East country.

"We need to make efforts to explain (to Iraqis) that our troops will focus on reconstruction efforts without conducting hostile activities against Iraqi people," presidential spokesman Yoon Tai-young quoted Roh as saying.