Korean Embassy On Alert After Threats In Bangkok
By CT Hj Mahmod

Bandar Seri Begawan - South Korean embassy in Brunei joined other Asean countries yesterday in beefing up security after its diplomatic mission in Bangkok received terror threats from a group calling themselves the "Anti-Korean Interest Agency".

Though, the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Brunei had not received any such threats, Korean Ambassador Kim Woong-Nam admitted of having been informed of the threat made in Thailand.

And he said, "The embassy has taken precautionary measures to tighten security on view of the current situation in Thailand".

As far as Korean Ambassador to Brunei, Kim Woong-Nam remembers, "this is the first time that such a threat have been made against South Korean diplomatic missions based in Asean countries," adding that he was surprised when he received the news.

AFP quoting the Korean Foreign Ministry reported from Seoul meanwhile saying a terror group had warned of attacks on South Korea's assets and aircraft in Southeast Asia.

The message to the Bangkok mission, sent by a previously unknown group warned of attacks on South Korean businesses and organisations in Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam, and Indonesia and the rest of Asean countries beginning on Wednesday, AFP reported the Korean foreign ministry of having said.

Prime Minister Goh Kun asked his cabinet to strengthen counter-terrorism measures to protect South Korean airlines, diplomatic missions and residents overseas, his office said in a press release.

Goh held an emergency telephone conference with the foreign minister, intelligence chief and transportation minister early on Friday to discuss the threat.

After Seoul's home affairs ministry held an emergency counter-terrorism meeting, two national carriers - Korean Air and Asiana Airline - raised their security stance by one notch to alert two from three on Friday.

The government had previously dismissed violence in the Muslim dominated south as the work of "bandits" and criminal gangs. But the organisation of the firebomb strikes on the schools last Sunday indicate the attackers are foreign-trainee extremists, officials and experts said.

"At present international terrorists are linked together like a network, wish al-Qaeda at the core," retired Gen. Kitti Rattanachaya, a special security adviser appointed after the assaults, told AP on Thursday. "They might give moral, ideological or tactical support to each other. These groups know each other well, they were comrades-in-arms in Afghanistan."

Kitti, a former arny commander for the southern region, said he believes the school attackers were from a local separatist group, Mujahideen Pattani. The assailants' organized manner show they had help, possibly from the Kampulan Mujahideen Malaysia, which has ties to the al-Qaeda-linked regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah, he said. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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