Posted on 07/10/2004 10:45:14 AM PDT by bunkerhill7
Seoul warns of terror attacks on ships
SEOUL - South Korea has put its shipping companies on alert after an Islamic militant group threatened to destroy vessels carrying US military goods in the Middle East, news reports and intelligence officials said on Saturday.
The government's National Intelligence Service said it found an Arabic language website carrying a threat to 'attack ships carrying strategic materials for the US military'.
It cited a South Korean shipping company and eight other shipping firms from the United States, the Netherlands and Hong Kong as its targets, news reports said.
'We have told the Maritime and Fisheries Ministry, maritime police and other related agencies to take measures to guard against terrorism,' a spokesman for the intelligence agency said on condition of anonymity.
The spokesman gave no further details.
South Korean media, citing intelligence sources, reported on Saturday that a militant group identifying itself as 'Supreme Headquarters of Islamic Militants in Iraq' posted its terror threat on a website on July 3.
South Korea reportedly issued the terror warning to all its six shipping companies that operate on sea routes to the Middle East.
Seoul plans to start sending 3,000 soldiers to the Kurdish region of north-eastern Iraq in August. They will be joined there by about 600 military medics and engineers already operating in the country's south.
The deployment will make South Korea the biggest coalition partner after the US and Britain. -- AP
try us
When will it be enough to stop calling our "enemy" in this war "insurgents", "Guerrillas", "freedom fighters", "adjutants", "rebels", or "dissidents"?
Actually, I'm really surprised there hasn't been a USS Cole type bombing of a passinger liner yet......
I've wondered about something like that too.........happening in Miami or a Carribean port-o-call to some large defenseless cruise ship?
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