Awful act of brutality

The nation felt shock and grief when Iraqi militants were found to have decapitated a Korean man they had been holding hostage. Efforts to save him by the Korean government and the international community came to naught, to the chagrin of those who wished to see him return home unharmed.

Kim Sun-il, who had reportedly been held in captivity for five days, was killed on Tuesday afternoon after the Korean government refused the kidnappers' demands to withdraw its troops from Iraq and cancel its plan to send more.

He was a young man who just wanted to make money to continue his Arabic studies at graduate school. He had nothing to do with Korea's decision to dispatch troops, whose main mission is to help rebuild the war-torn country.

To be sure, the killing of an innocent civilian was an unpardonable act of terrorism. It must be condemned as such by all peace-loving people in Korea and around the world. His captors will have to realize that they have turned the Korean people into their enemy by committing this barbaric act.

Hindsight shows that the Korean government was not well prepared for such a terrorist act when it decided to send 3,000 troops, in addition to the 670 medics and engineers already stationed in Iraq. It failed to learn a lesson from Japan's experience in April.

Despite its initial fumbling, the Japanese government established contact with the captors through Muslim clerics and persuaded them to set the hostages free, arguing that killing the innocent civilians would aggravate international opinion about the Iraqi militants.

In addition, the Japanese foreign minister appeared on Arab TV to appeal for their release.

To keep similar kidnappings from taking place, the Korean government will have to evacuate all Koreans from Iraq, except for a few who must remain. While arranging better protection for those left behind, it will also have to warn Korean nationals against traveling to the Middle East, not to mention Iraq.

That is a job the Korean government should have done when it made the final decision to dispatch additional troops last week. Though belated, it should start the evacuation now. And it has an additional work to do.

Given an earlier report that al-Qaeda considered attacking American facilities in Korea during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the Korean government will have to tighten its security checks, both at air and seaports.

-- The Korea Herald, Seoul