S. Koreans Protest Iraq Troop Deployment as Turkish Drivers Stop Supplying US Forces

03/08/2004| IslamWeb

Anti-war demonstrators have scuffled with riot police near the office of President Roh Moo-Hyun to protest the dispatch of South Korean troops to Iraq, witnesses said. The scuffles erupted on Tuesday when riot police blocked about 200 slogan-chanting protesters from marching close to the presidential compound in central Seoul. Demonstrators shouting "Down with Roh Moo-Hyun" pushed and kicked police who pushed them back using plastic shields. Similar scuffles erupted earlier in the day when hundreds of riot police erected a barricade with buses to block 500 activists and students from entering a military airport at the southern outskirts of Seoul. **Banner*** Dozens of students unfolded a banner reading "Scrap S Korea-US alliance" on top of the police buses as their colleagues wrestled with riot police at the gate of the airport. South Korea will start deploying some 3,000 troops to northern Iraq from August. The contingent of mostly 'non-combatants' will be the third largest in the US-led occupation troops in the war-torn country. The beheading of Kim Sun-Il, a 33 year-old South Korean citizen, by a group in Iraq in June fuelled anti-war protests in Seoul but the government vowed to push on with the troop dispatch. South Korea already has 660 army engineers and medics operating in the southern Iraqi city of al-Nasiriya. **Turkish drivers to stop supplying US troops after killing*** Turkey's International Transporters' Association says its drivers will stop ferrying goods to US forces in Iraq. It follows the killing of a Turkish worker in Iraq by Islamist militants. Earlier on Monday, several Islamist websites featured a videotape of Murat Yuce and his captors, apparently from a group linked to al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The tape shows the hostage urging Turkish companies to pull out of Iraq. He is later seen being shot and when he falls to the ground, the gunman shoots him twice more. At the weekend militants linked to al-Zarqawi threatened to behead two Turkish drivers they are holding unless their firm quits Iraq. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Turkish truckers union stated they will halt operations in Iraq. (Al-Jazeera)