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Kim Sun-il
Kim Sun-il (; 13 September 1970 – ) was a South Korean interpreter and Christian missionary who was kidnapped and murdered by decapitation in Iraq. Early life and education Kim was born into a poor family and his biological mother died when he was nine years old. He was fluent in Arabic, holding a graduate degree in the language from Seoul's Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in February 2003. He also had degrees in English and theology, and had hoped to become a missionary in the Middle East. Kidnapping Arrival Kim arrived in Iraq on 15 June 2003, working for Gana General Trading Company, a South Korean company under contract to the American military. On 30 May 2004, he was kidnapped in Fallujah — about west of Baghdad — by the Islamist group Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad and held as a hostage. The group, which was allegedly led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed him on or about 22 June when South Korea refused to meet their demands of cancelling its plans o ...
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Busan
Busan (), officially Busan Metropolitan City, is South Korea's second list of cities in South Korea by population, most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.3 million as of 2024. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, with its port being South Korea's busiest and the sixth-busiest in the world. The surrounding "Southeastern Maritime Industrial Region" (including Ulsan, South Gyeongsang Province, South Gyeongsang, Daegu, and part of North Gyeongsang Province, North Gyeongsang and South Jeolla Province, South Jeolla) is South Korea's largest industrial area. The large volumes of port traffic and urban population in excess of 1 million make Busan a Large-Port metropolis using the Southampton System of Port-City classification. As of 2019, Busan Port is the primary port in Korea and the world's sixth-largest container port. Busan is divided into 15 major administrative districts and a single co ...
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Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad
Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (), abbreviated as JTJ or Jama'at, was a Salafi jihadist militant group. It was founded in Jordan in 1999, and was led by Jordanian national Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for the entirety of its existence. During the Iraqi insurgency (2003–11), the group became a decentralized network with foreign fighters with a considerable Iraqi membership. On 17 October 2004, al-Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, and the group became known as Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq or Tanzim). After several mergers with other groups and the formation of the Mujahideen Shura Council, it changed its name several times until it called itself Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) in 2006. Origins Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a Jordanian Jihadist who traveled to Afghanistan to fight within the Soviet–Afghan War, but arrived after the departure of the Soviet troops, and soon returned to his homeland. He even ...
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South Korea's Ministry Of Information And Communication
The Ministry of Information and Communication or MIC was a ministry of the government of South Korea. Its headquarters are located in Jongno-gu, central Seoul. The last minister was Rho Jun-hyong, who began serving in March 2006. The ministry was dissolved on February 28, 2008 and combined with the former ''Korean Broadcasting Commission'' to form the Korea Communications Commission. See also *Korea Post *Government of South Korea *Communications in South Korea In South Korea, telecommunications services improved dramatically in the 1980s with the assistance of foreign partners and as a result of the development of the electronics industry. The number of telephones in use in 1987 reached 9.2 million, a ... External linksOfficial English-language site Information and Communication Communications in South Korea Korea, South Korea, South 1994 establishments in South Korea 2008 disestablishments in South Korea {{SouthKorea-gov-stub ...
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Roh Moo-hyun
Roh Moo-hyun (, ; 1 September 1946 – 23 May 2009) was a South Korean politician and lawyer who served as the ninth president of South Korea from 2003 to 2008. Roh's pre-presidential political career was focused on human rights advocacy for student activists in South Korea. His electoral career later expanded to a focus on overcoming regionalism (politics), regionalism in South Korean politics, culminating in his election to the presidency. He achieved a large following among younger internet users, which aided his success in the presidential election. Roh's election was notable for the arrival in power of a new generation of Korean politicians, the so-called 386 Generation (people in their thirties, when the term was coined, who had attended university in the 1980s and who were born in the 1960s). This generation had been veterans of student protests against authoritarian rule and advocated a conciliatory approach towards North Korea, even at the expense of good relations wit ...
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President Of South Korea
The president of the Republic of Korea (), also known as the president of South Korea (), is the head of state and head of government of South Korea. The president directs the executive branch of the Government of South Korea, government and is the commander-in-chief of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces. The Constitution of South Korea and the amended Presidential Election Act of 1987 provide for election of the president by direct, secret ballot, ending sixteen years of indirect presidential elections under the preceding two authoritarian governments. The president is directly elected to a five-year term, with no possibility of re-election. If a presidential vacancy should occur, a successor must be elected within sixty days, during which time presidential duties are to be performed by the Prime Minister of South Korea, prime minister or other senior cabinet members in the order of priority as determined by law. The president is exempt from criminal liability (except for insur ...
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Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are distributed to its members, major U.S. daily newspapers and radio and television broadcasters. Since the award was established in 1917, the AP has earned 59 Pulitzer Prizes, including 36 for photography. The AP is also known for its widely used ''AP Stylebook'', its AP polls tracking National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA sports, sponsoring the National Football League's annual awards, and its election polls and results during Elections in the United States, US elections. By 2016, news collected by the AP was published and republished by more than 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters. The AP operates 235 news bureaus in 94 countries, and publishes in English, Spanish, and Arabic. It also operates the AP Radio Network, which provides twice ...
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South Korean Government
The government of South Korea () is the national government of the Republic of Korea, created by the Constitution of South Korea as the executive, legislative and judicial authority of the republic. The president acts as the head of state and is the highest figure of executive authority in the country, followed by the prime minister and government ministers in decreasing order. The Executive and Legislative branches operate primarily at the national level, although various ministries in the executive branch also carry out local functions. Local governments are semi-autonomous and contain executive and legislative bodies of their own. The judicial branch operates at both the national and local levels. The South Korean government's structure is determined by the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. This document has been revised several times since its first promulgation in 1948 (for details, see History of South Korea). However, it has retained many broad characteristics; wi ...
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Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl (October 10, 1963 – February 1, 2002) was an American journalist who worked for ''The Wall Street Journal.'' On January 23, 2002, he was kidnapped by Jihadism, jihadist militants while he was on his way to what he had expected would be an interview with Pakistani Islamic scholar Mubarak Ali Gilani in Karachi, Sindh. Pearl had moved to Mumbai, India, upon taking up a regional posting by his newspaper and later entered Pakistan to cover the war on terror, which was launched by the United States in response to the September 11 attacks in 2001. At the time of his abduction, he had been investigating the alleged links between British citizen Richard Reid (or the "American Airlines Flight 63 (2001), Shoe Bomber") and al-Qaeda; Reid had reportedly completed his training at a facility owned by Gilani, who had been accused by the United States of being affiliated with the Pakistani terrorist organization Jamaat ul-Fuqra. A few days after his disappearance, Pearl's captors r ...
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Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries by area, fifth-largest country in Asia, the largest in the Middle East, and the List of countries and dependencies by area, 12th-largest in the world. It is bordered by the Red Sea to the west; Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the southeast; and Yemen to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the south. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northwest separates Saudi Arabia from Egypt and Israel. Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of Geography of Saudi Arabia, its terrain consists of Arabian Desert, arid desert, lowland, steppe, and List of mountains in Saudi Arabia, mountains. The capital and List of cities ...
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Paul Marshall Johnson, Jr
Paul Marshall Johnson Jr. (May 8, 1955 – ) was an American helicopter engineer who lived in Saudi Arabia. In 2004, he was taken hostage by militants and his murder was recorded on video tape. Background Johnson was born in Eagleswood Township, New Jersey. He graduated from Southern Regional High School in 1973. Abduction and death On June 12, 2004, Johnson, who worked for Lockheed Martin on upgrading Saudi AH-64A Apache attack helicopters, was stopped at a fake police checkpoint near Riyadh and then abducted. His kidnappers called themselves Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The group, headed by Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, posted a video of a blindfolded Johnson on an Islamist website on June 15, 2004 and threatened to kill him unless all al-Qaeda prisoners were released from Saudi jails within 72 hours. Immediately after the video was released, American and Saudi Arabian authorities began to deal with the hostage situation. Both the United States and Saudi Arabia asserted tha ...
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Eugene Armstrong
Members of the Iraqi insurgency began taking foreign hostages in Iraq beginning in April 2004. Since then, in a dramatic instance of Islamist kidnapping they have taken captive more than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis; among them, dozens of hostages were killed and others rescued or freed. In 2004, executions of captives were often filmed, and many were beheaded. However, the number of the recorded killings decreased significantly. Many hostages remain missing with no clue as to their whereabouts. The United States Department of State Hostage Working Group was organized by the U.S. Embassy, Baghdad, in the summer of 2004 to monitor foreign hostages in Iraq. The motives for these kidnappings include: * influencing foreign governments with troops in Iraq to withdraw * influencing foreign companies with workers in Iraq to leave the country * demanding ransom money * creating terror in Iraq * discouraging travel to Iraq * prisoner exchange The following is a list of known ...
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Nick Berg
Nicholas Evan Berg (April 2, 1978 – May 7, 2004) was an American freelance radio-tower repairman who went to Iraq after the United States' invasion of Iraq. He was abducted and beheaded according to a video released in May 2004 by Islamist militants in response to the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse involving the United States Army and Iraqi prisoners. The CIA claimed Berg was murdered by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The decapitation video was released on the internet, reportedly from London to a Malaysian-hosted homepage by the Islamist organization Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad. Early life and education Berg was born in Charlotte, North Carolina and grew up in West Whiteland Township, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. He was referred to as a "religious Jew." Berg graduated from Henderson High School in West Chester in 1996. In 1996, he was a student at Cornell University but later dropped out. He took classes at Drexel University in 1998, and, in 1999, attended ...
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