The death of two South Korean men in an ambush in Iraq bewildered the South Korean government over the Iraq-bound troop dispatch issue, although it insisted the incident will not affect Seoul's decision to send military there on Monday.  

In the ambush near Tikrit, the hometown of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, two South Korean men working for South Korean local Omu Electric Co. were killed by unidentified gunmen. They are the first South Korean casualties in Iraq since the US-led Iraq War began in March 2003.

The attack shocked the Seoul government, who convened several meetings in the day to discuss the security situation in the Middle East country and the proposed dispatch of more South Korean troops to Iraq.

"There are no changes in our plan to send troops to Iraq," South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, South Korean National Security Advisor Ra Jong-il also stated that Seoul will not link the attack to the troop dispatch plan.

In this April and May, Seoul sent hundreds of engineers and medical personnel to Iraq. And in October, Seoul again accepted US demand to send an additional large number of troops to Iraq.

However, in the wake of the sensitivity of the issue, the South Korean government has yet decided the exact number, nature, date of dispatch, deployment location of the proposed troops.

According to reports, the South Korean government mulled sending 3,000 troops with independent commander to the Middle East country.

South Korea and Washington reportedly had difference over the issue. The United States wants Seoul to dispatch a larger mission to Iraq, with most of them being combatants.

But Seoul is likely to send combined troops composed of both combatants and non-combatants to Iraq in the wake of civic anti-war mood. And Seoul prefers to send these troops around April next year, later than the United States expected.

The death of the two South Korean citizens made local people more divided over the issue.

More and more legislators took negative stance over the troops dispatch, although all the political parties held cautious stand over the issue.

Some lawmakers think to dispatch South Korean troops under the current situation is not proper, and the South Korean military will be targets of attacks there.

Chang Young-dal, chairman of the National Assembly Defense Committee, emphasized the troops dispatch should be postponed because of the ambush.

While Kim Young-hwan of the Millennium Democratic Party stressed the need to reconsider the troops dispatch plan.

The other legislators supporting the troop sending plan urged the government to make clear whether the attack was accidental or intentional.

Lawmaker Cho Woong-kyu, who led a parliamentary fact-finding mission in Iraq last month, said, "We need to cautiously deal with the matter, but we should not change our original position."

While the parliament mission was in Iraq last month, a rocket hit the hotel where they stayed in Baghdad, but fortunately with no casualties.

A series of attacks against foreigners has aroused grave concern among local people. Just before the ambush on the South Korean people in Iraq, seven Spanish intelligence officers were killed on last Saturday and two Japanese diplomats were killed on the same day.

Since Seoul made decision to send additional troops to Iraq, the anti-war sentiment has increased locally.

Many civic groups called on the government to withdraw the previous decision, saying, "That is just the beginning of the dangers we have to face from now on."

The attack incident made anti-troop dispatch rate among the local people surpassed the 50 percent level on Monday. In an Internet poll taken by the online portal, Naver, 56.6 percent of 3,423 respondents urged the government to rethink the plan.

Previously, both pros and cons in such kind of polls could not get a majority.

(Xinhua News Agency December 2, 2003)