South Korean police said Wednesday they had arrested an Indonesian migrant, who was illegally residing in Korea, on suspicion of supporting an international terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaida.
The National Police Agency nabbed the 32-year-old Indonesian at his residence in South Chungcheong Province on charges of violating the Immigration Control Law and forging documents.
The police raided his residence and confiscated a bowie knife, a model of an M16 rifle and a number of books on Islamic fundamentalism. They also found a debit card and bankbooks under different names.
(Yonhap)
The man, who entered Korea on a forged passport in 2007, is suspected of having supported the al-Nusra Front, a Syrian al-Qaida affiliate, through social media for months.
He was found to have posted a video clip of himself waving the terrorist group’s flag atop a local mountain on social media in April. He also uploaded a photo of himself wearing a cap with the group’s logo at Gyeongbokgung Palace, the most frequented tourist destination in central Seoul.
He expressed his anger toward the worldwide condolences for the French in the wake of Friday night’s deadly attacks in Paris, according to the police.
“It is too much that people pray for France when nobody can confirm who did it while they feel nothing when 400,000 Syrian civilians die,” he said on social media.
Al-Nusra, which was founded in Syria in 2011 at the command of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, aims to establish an Islamist state in Syria, mostly through carrying out bombing, guerilla and suicide attacks. It has links to al-Qaida, and has grown into an international terrorist group with an estimated 10,000 members.
The police said they will continue the investigation to find out whether the suspect has accomplices or is part of a local network of terrorist sympathizers.
Earlier Wednesday, the National Intelligence Service said in a parliamentary report that it found 10 South Koreans who had publicly expressed support for the Islamic State, the group thought to be behind the terrorist attacks in Paris. But the agency could not identify them for legal reasons.
The agency added that 48 foreigners in Korea suspected of being linked to the international terrorist groups or viewed as security risks had been arrested and deported since 2010.
The arrest comes just a month after the government caught five IS sympathizers trying to smuggle bomb materials into Lebanon.
In January, an 18-year-old middle school dropout allegedly traveled to the Middle East to join the Islamic State. Two other Koreans attempted to follow suit, though their trip was canceled after the police confiscated their passports.
By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)
