IRAQ: A South Korean hostage held by Islamist militants in Iraq was killed last night despite efforts by Iraqi clerics to secure his release, write Mark Huband in London, and Andrew Ward in Seoul.
The South Korean foreign ministry said US forces in Iraq had found the body of Kim Sun-il (33) which its embassy had identified.
A film of the translator was broadcast on al-Jazeera, the Arab television channel, which said he was beheaded. It did not show his killing but showed his masked and heavily armed captors standing over Mr Kim as they announced that they were about to carry out their threat.
President Bush said last night that the US would not be intimidated by Iraqi militants. "They want us to cower in the face of their brutal killings, and the United States will not be intimidated . . . because we believe strongly in freedom and liberty."
The US military carried out air strikes last night on what they said was a safehouse used by militants linked to al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, believed to be behind Mr Kim's murder. A hospital official in Falluja said four people were killed in the air strike.
Mr Kim's murder is the latest in a series of killings by Muslim extremists. In May, Nicholas Berg, a businessman, was murdered in similar circumstances in Iraq and last week Paul Johnson, an aeronautical engineer, was killed in Saudi Arabia. Mr Kim, a fluent Arabic speaker, was seized last week near Falluja while working for a Korean trading company supplying the US military.
His death is a political blow to Mr Roh Moo-hyun, the South Korean president, who sent troops to Iraq in defiance of widespread public opposition.
The militants from the Jamaat al-Tawhid i-Jihad group had threatened to kill Mr Kim unless South Korea withdrew its forces from Iraq. A deadline of yesterday for Seoul to agree to the group's demands was extended after Iraqi intermediaries opened a dialogue with the captors.
According to diplomats, some of the demands had been met.
Violence continued elsewhere in Iraq yesterday. Two US soldiers were killed and one wounded when their vehicle came under fire in the town of Balad, north of Baghdad.
In the northern city of Mosul, a university dean and her husband were found murdered on Tuesday in the latest in a series of killings of prominent figures. In Baghdad, a car bomb blast killed two Iraqis.
- Reuters adds: President Bush said he had never ordered the torture of Iraqi or al Qaeda prisoners as he and his administration went on the offensive yesterday to counter reports suggesting that he condoned torture. At the White House, officials released a set of documents to show the deliberation process that was used by Mr Bush and his top aides in setting a broad policy toward ensuring prisoners were treated humanely. The White House release was coupled with Pentagon plans to release secret orders from Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld on interrogating terrorism suspects in Guantanamo Bay, officials said. "We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture," Mr Bush said.