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A portrait of slain Kim Sun-il, pictured with a bible, on an altar during a funeral service at a hospital in Pusan, Wednesday. / Yonhap


Kim's parents on hearing news of the death of their son


South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon lays a flower during a funeral service for Kim Sun-Il in Busan June 23, 2004. Islamic militants beheaded Kim on Tuesday in Iraq. Photo by Pool/Reuters

Warning!! These images are horrific and gruesome and to be viewed ONLY by mature audience: An Islamist Web site has posted a videotape of the beheading Kim Sun-il by his captors in Iraq after Seoul rejected demands for South Korea to stop contributing troops to U.S.-led forces in Iraq. CLICK Here and follow instructions to view the video (This is the uncensored long version of the video ) ---- South Korean Internet service providers blocked access to web sites suspected of carrying graphic images of the beheading of a Korean hostage in Iraq, officials said Thursday. The ban today followed reports that a video showing the beheading of Kim Sun-Il, 33, by Islamic insurgents was circulating through the Internet, according to the Ministry of Information and Communication. "We have asked local Internet service providers to block the possible spread of footage showing Kim's beheading," a ministry official told AFP. Read here for more Gruesome Images of Beheading of American Paul Johnson by Al-Qaeda Gunmen in Saudi Arabia. CLICK HERE TO VIEW or Here

A South Korean hostage became the latest victim to be beheaded by militant Islamic captors in Iraq yesterday, after Seoul refused to accede to demands for a withdrawal from the US-led coalition. American forces found the body of Kim Sun-il west of Baghdad yesterday afternoon, prompting outrage from South Korean leaders, who called the murder an "inhumane act of terror". In a videotape broadcast on the al-Jazeera network, Mr Kim was shown kneeling on the ground in front of three masked militants. His shoulders were heaving, his mouth open as if he were gulping air and he was sobbing. He wore a bright orange jumpsuit and was blindfold. One of the kidnappers read a statement addressed to the Korean people, saying: "We warned you and you ignored [the warning] ... Enough lies. Your army is not here for the sake of Iraqis, but for the sake of cursed America."The broadcast did not show Mr Kim dead, but the al-Jazeera presenter said he had been beheaded. Read here for more

Stunned by the beheading of a South Korean hostage in Iraq, some Koreans turned out here on Wednesday night for strident anti-American rallies, while others deluged mosques with telephone bomb threats and crashed a Defense Ministry Web site with offers to volunteer to fight terrorists. The atrocity emboldened 50 members of the National Assembly to endorse a motion urging the government to stop and reconsider the deployment.Read here for more

Updated!!!: The Bush administration has decided to take the unusual step of bestowing on its own troops and personnel immunity from prosecution by Iraqi courts for killing Iraqis or destroying local property after the occupation ends and political power is transferred to an interim Iraqi government, U.S. officials said. The administration plans to accomplish that step -- which would bypass the most contentious remaining issue before the transfer of power -- by extending an order that has been in place during the year-long occupation of Iraq. Order 17 gives all foreign personnel in the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority immunity from "local criminal, civil and administrative jurisdiction and from any form of arrest or detention other than by persons acting on behalf of their parent states." U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer is expected to extend Order 17 as one of his last acts before shutting down the occupation next week, U.S. officials said. The order is expected to last an additional six or seven months, until the first national elections are held. Read here for more

The United States bowed Wednesday to broad opposition on the Security Council and announced it was dropping its effort to gain immunity for its troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. Read here for more

A new book written by a senior CIA official using the pseudonym "Anonymous" offers a scathing indictment of how the United States is fighting the war on terror.Still an employee of the CIA, the author was only allowed to write the book, Imperial Hubris, and talk to the media on condition that he not reveal his identity. "I wrote it because I think America is in trouble," he said. "We have not yet appreciated the dimensions of the problem or the size of the problem." He also slams the war in Iraq, calling it "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat." "Anonymous" was formerly in charge of the CIA's efforts to track down Osama bin Laden. The war in Iraq played into bin Laden's hands, he writes, by fostering further hatred of America. Read here for more

The United States has again urged Americans not to travel to Saudi Arabia and warned those in the kingdom to immediately leave. The State Department notes recent attacks against Americans in Saudi Arabia have resulted in deaths and kidnapping. Wednesday's alert updates a warning issued before al-Qaida militants beheaded an American hostage last week. Read here for more

U .S. negotiators presented the first detailed U.S. proposal Wednesday on resolving the standoff with North Korea, offering energy aid and a security guarantee in exchange for Pyongyang’s agreement to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.The proposal is meant to break an impasse in talks that began their third round after earlier negotiations brought no progress on Washington’s demand for North Korea to scrap its nuclear program Read here for more

A recording purportedly made by the mastermind of bombings and beheadings in Iraq threatened to assassinate Iraq’s interim prime minister and fight the Americans “until Islamic rule is back on Earth.”"As for you (Iyad) Allawi ... you don't know that you have already survived traps we made for you. We promise you that we will continue the game with you until the end," the online recording said. "We will not get bored until we make you drink from the same glass that Izzadine Saleem tasted," said the tape purportedly made by al-Qaida-linked militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and published online Wednesday.

The Bush administration's policy of barring news photographs of the flag-covered coffins of service members killed in Iraq won the backing of the Republican-controlled Senate on Monday, when lawmakers defeated a Democratic measure to instruct the Pentagon to allow pictures.Read here for more

French Foreign Minister Michel Bernier reiterated Tuesday his country's opposition to the deployment of French troops in Iraq as part of NATO forces.Speaking at a joint press conference in Amman with his Jordanian counterpart Marwan al-Muashar, Bernier said there will be no French military presence in Iraq "neither now nor at any other time." Read here for more

Mandated by the United Nations and currently commanded by NATO, the International Security Assistance Force has been operating in Afghanistan's capital Kabul since shortly after the late 2001 fall of the Taliban.ISAF was created in accordance with the Bonn Conference in December 2001 and the first mission was undertaken by the United Kingdom.There are more than 6,400 ISAF troops in Afghanistan from the following countries:

NATO NATIONS

Belgium - 293
Bulgaria - 34
Canada - 1,576
Czech Republic - 19
Denmark - 57
Estonia - 7
France - 565Germany - 1,909
Greece - 127
Hungary - 26
Iceland - 17
Italy - 491
Latvia - 2
Lithuania - 6
Luxembourg - 9
Netherlands - 153
Norway - 147
Poland - 22
Portugal - 8
Romania - 32
Slovakia - 17
Slovenia - 18
Spain - 125
Turkey - 161
United Kingdom - 315
United States - 67

NON-NATO NATIONS

Austria - 3
Afghanistan - 81
Albania - 22
Azerbaijan - 22
Croatia - 47
Finland - 48
FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) - 11
Ireland - 6
New Zealand - 6
Sweden - 19
Switzerland - 4

Total: 6,472
- Figures supplied by the International Security Assistance Force and correct as at June 14, 2004.

A majority of Israeli Jews think Israeli Arabs are a threat to security and believe they should be encouraged to leave the country, according to a new survey.The author of the wide-ranging survey said Tuesday that the numbers were the result of nearly four years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.Israeli Arabs constitute about 20 percent of Israel's population of 6.8 million. They enjoy full civil and political rights - unlike their Palestinian counterparts in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip - but suffer from economic and social discrimination.Professor Gavriel Ben Dor of the University of Haifa said the survey of 1,016 Israelis found that 64 percent of Jewish respondents believe the government should encourage Israeli Arabs to leave the country, and 55 percent think they constitute a threat to Israeli security.The survey also found that 46 percent of Israeli Jews believe that Israeli Arabs should lose their right to vote and not be allowed to sit in parliament, Ben Dor said.More than 80 percent of Arab Israeli voters take part in national elections, and Arab Israelis have 10 representatives in the 120-member parliament.Ben Dor said the results of the survey were nearly identical to those of three previous polls he conducted in 2001, 2002 and 2003.Read here for more

Public support for Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government this month fell 14 percentage points to 40 percent because of voter unease over plans to join a United Nations force in Iraq, the Asahi newspaper said, citing its own survey. The biggest monthly drop in support for Koizumi's Cabinet in more than two years and a rise to 42 percent of respondents that disapproved of the government meant that more people said they were unhappy with the government than supported it for the first time since March 2003, the paper said. Read here for more

Dutch troops in the southern Iraqi city of Samawah will be pulled out after their deployment term ends in March, 2005, said the Dutch Ministry of Defence's spokesperson on Monday.Read here for more

Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski announced Tuesday that Poland would extend its mandate in Iraq from June 30 to December 31, 2004.Read here fore more

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