With the threat of kidnappings of Koreans on the rise even in Arbil, where Korean troops are based, the soldiers of the Zayitun Unit stand guard with tense expressions during a civil-military affairs operation in downtown Arbil on Friday afternoon (local time)./Yonhap
Pressian, the Chosun Ilbo and others are reporting that a bounty of 10kg of gold or US$8,000 has been placed by Iraqi (and foreign) insurgents on the heads of Korean troops and civilians in Iraq. An official from the Korean Zayitun Unit in Iraq said Friday (local time), “We’ve asked civilians to show caution as we’ve recieved intelligence that terrorist forces in Iraq were offering rewards to those who kidnap and bring them Koreans in Iraq.” The groups offering the bounty apparently include Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid wal Jihad crew, who were responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Korean Kim Sun-il in June.
Similar rewards were placed on the heads of Koreans residing in Iraq while Korean engineering and medical units were deployed in the southern city of Nassiriya, and bounties have also been placed on other foreigners in Iraq, but following the Kim Sun-il incident, the rewards for Koreans increased relative to other foreign nationals, said an official residing in Arbil. Or, as the Chosun Ilbo quotes the Zayitun Unit official, “A bounty has been placed not just on Koreans, but civilians of all those nations that deployed troops to Iraq, but as I understand it, when the death of Kim Sun-il caused a huge stir, the bounty on Koreans went up relative to other foreigners in Iraq.”
66 Korean civilians reside in the Arbil area, mostly contractors for the Korean military. Since Oct. 2, when Korea was officially named to al-Qaeda’s hit list, they’ve been confined to base. Security measures have also been heightened.
What’s more, the Chosun Ilbo — citing a government source — reported Saturday that as Korean troops were making their way from Kuwait to Arbil last month, insurgents fired off two RPG-7s (which luckily missed) at their convoy in an incident north of Baghdad, an incident government and military authorities failed to announce out of fear of heightening feelings of insecurity at home. A Defense Ministry official indirectly confirmed the incident to Pressian, saying that he had heard that the attack was not aimed at the Korean troops, but at the U.S. troops escorting the convoy.
When the Defense Ministry announced on Sept. 22 that Korean troops had successfully completed their deployment to Arbil, it noted that on the way from Kuwait, two improvised explosive devices were discovered along the convoy’s route, but no mention was made of the RPG attack.
Not only is this news going to heighten concerns about troop safety — the antitank RPG-7 can penetrate 30cm of armor and has caused significant losses to U.S. tanks, armored vehicles and Humvees in Iraq, explained Pressian — but the Defense Ministry is likely to face criticism that it intentionally hid news of the incident in order to avoid voices critical of the Iraq deployment.
Note: Photo of Muslim Korean soldiers at morning prayer in Iraq via Yonhap. Another cool photo of the Korea’s Muslim troops at morning prayers here.
8 Comments
Not surprising Jim. I know that yahoo started asking for more than yahoo id and passwords on their South Korean sites after some idiot posted a pic of some killing I think on a yahoo message board or a link to that, but now a ton of South Korean sites want you to enter your citizen id number and your name. That’s so Big Brotherish. Adult sites, I understand it protects children. News sites with comment boxes, that’s abnormal. I’ll guess that no other country in the world does that.
But, the idiot who posted the weird link and started things off did it in a yahoo message box for a yahoo article. Or perhaps he did in a bunch of places at the same time.
I never saw the link or the original post, I just saw re:___ posts and later that day I read a news article about that post. News stating that police are going after the dude.
$8000? Is that all? I’m dissappointed that it isn’t far more. How much is a captured American worth?
“The PG-7 grenade, with a shaped-charge warhead, has very good armor penetration (330 mm), capable of defeating all known armored vehicles…
but, later in the Global Sec quote:
An RPG projectile screen of chain link fence will completely neutralize 50 percent of the rounds and degrade the penetrating capability of the remaining rounds…”
GS doesn’t explicitly say so, but the 330 mm of armor probably refers to “rolled homogeneous steel”, the old standard for measuring the strength of armor protection on armored vehicles, prior to the development of modern composite & depleted-uranium- enhanced armor, such as is found on modern tanks & armored vehicles.
The quote “…capable of defeating all known armored vehicles..” sounds exactly like the “school solution” language we used to hear on the LAW range. It doesn’t automatically translate into any single hit, or even several, achieving a catastrophic kill, or even any penetration into the crew compartment. If the grenade hits & breaks the tread — or achieves penetration into the engine compartment (for the M1, this would have to be from a rear shot)– it can stop the advance of the tank or Bradley and thus “defeat” it. But always the vehicle can be recovered, and usually repaired readily, sometimes even without evacuation to depot level maintenance.
To achieve maximum armor penetration the hit by the shaped charge warhead has to be close to perpendicular. Any sort of obligue angle hit degrades the penetration of the molten jet considerably; also any type of material on the outside of the vehicle might cause early detonation of the warhead and early degradation of the molten jet before it enters the armor. I speculate this is part of the reason why I’ve seen some Bradleys and M113 family APC’s in Iraq with side-mounted cargo racks (such as I saw the Israelis using at one time on their M113s).
It’s not particularly fun for the crews, but I think the reason you see the M1’s and Bradleys being used so frequently with the forward forces in urban settings in Iraq is because of their ability to usually shrug off RPG hits. Precision heavy return fire from their main gun weapons, as well as the return fire from infantry in close support, is devastating to the RPG gunners and there are probably very few “both old and bold” ones over there now.
Korean government restricts and blocks Korean reporters’ activity in IRAQ.
Korea blocked typepad as she had blocked geocities before. The scariest thing is Korean government is trying to monitor internet accesses that were made in Korea. Three years ago, Korean government tried to legalize a proposal. The proposal was like this;
When people in Korea want to get in online, first they must insert their name, birth, address, and citizenship registration number into a monitoring webbrowser program that was made by Korean government. Which sites will Korea block next?
The free flow of information is really needed in Korea.
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FRom the Korea Times: South Korean soldiers, who in last few months converted to Islam, perform their first prayers inside their camp during an organized press visit in Irbil in northern Iraq, Friday.
Who in the last few months converted to Islam? Huh? What is going on here? Were Korean Muslim soldiers chosen over non-Muslims for deployment, that is; big bucks?
Will these guys convert back to soju once they get back home?
I need 8,000$ shoot ill take the job