| SOUTH Korea today said it would go ahead with a troop deployment to Iraq, despite a threat from an Islamic group to behead a South Korean hostage unless the plan was scrapped. "We will go ahead with the troops dispatch as planned. There are no changes to our plan," a defence ministry spokesman said. The kidnappers said they would carry out the killing unless Seoul said within 24 hours that it would send no more troops to Iraq. The group released a video today showing the sitting prisoner, identified as Kim Song-Il, ringed by masked, armed men. The men said they belonged to Iraq’s Unification and Jihad (Holy War) group, which is led by the al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. "Do not send any more troops to Iraq or we will send you the head of this Korean and it will be followed, God willing, by the heads of your soldiers," said one of the men in Arabic. |