As much as I don’t like the rioters in Baltimore comparing them to ISIS seems inappropriate to me, but that is what the Korea Times cartoonist has done:
How much does anyone want to bet that this 18-year old South Korean was a loser in real life and getting involved with ISIS is something that makes him feel empowered at something for the first time?:
Shown is a screen capture from the Twitter account of a South Korean teenager believed to have sneaked into Syria from Turkey recently to join the militant Muslim group Islamic State. (Yonhap file photo)
A South Korean teenager who vanished in Turkey last month has joined the Islamic State (IS) militant group and has been receiving training, lawmakers quoted South Korea’s national spy agency as saying Tuesday.
The 18-year-old, identified only by his surname Kim, disappeared on Jan. 10 during a trip to the southern Turkish town of Kilis and was last seen leaving a hotel.
He was reported to have crossed the border into Syria voluntarily to join the extremist group.
“Kim has joined IS and although the location hasn’t been confirmed, he has been receiving training,” lawmakers quoted an official of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) as saying during a meeting of the parliamentary intelligence committee.
“The agency said it has confirmed that Kim has been staying in a training camp,” a lawmaker said, requesting anonymity, without further elaboration. [Yonhap]
I am willing to bet like many foreign jihadis this teenager is probably a loser who spends a lot of time in front of his computer and feels like joining ISIS is some kind of way to feel empowered:
A South Korean teenager who recently vanished in Turkey may have crossed the border into Syria to join the Islamic State (IS), a Seoul official said Tuesday.
The whereabouts of the 18-year-old Korean, identified only by his surname Kim, have been unknown since he arrived in Turkey on Jan. 10. A local Turkish newspaper claimed that he had exchanged e-mails with IS before traveling to the country.
Citing CCTV footage obtained by Turkish police, the ranking South Korean foreign ministry official said Kim took a van together with an unidentified man after meeting him in front of a hotel in Kilis, a city situated near the border with Syria.
Kim and the unknown man then got off near a refugee camp in Besiriye, about 18 kilometers southeast from Kilis, on that day, the official said, adding the van with a Syrian plate is an unlicensed taxi.
“Their whereabouts have not been known since they got off in Besiriye,” the official said, asking not to be named. “There are also no records showing that they crossed the border at a checkpoint.”
There has been no clear evidence so far supporting that Kim might have joined the IS group, but Seoul doesn’t exclude such a possibility, the official said.
“The government cannot presuppose a possibility (that Kim might have joined the IS), but (if it is confirmed), it is a very worrisome situation,” he said. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but ultimately I am willing to bet this teenager will regret doing this.
Considering North Korea’s long defense relationship with Syria to include trying to make them a nuclear reactor, it only makes sense that ISIS would have captured plenty of North Korean manufactured weaponry:
The terror group ISIS that is effectively in charge of vast swathes of Syria and Iraq is using North Korean-made tanks and portable missiles, the website NK News claimed Monday.
It cited intelligence sources as claiming tanks used by ISIS in an attack on a Kurdish region in northern Iraq in September were Soviet T-55 tanks upgraded in North Korea, and portable missiles used by militants are of a type manufactured in the North.
Earlier, German intelligence told lawmakers that ISIS has portable surface-to-air missiles that are capable of shooting down civilian aircraft. A photo of an ISIS militant brandishing the weapon was posted on Twitter.
At the time, German intelligence believed the weapon was Russian, Bulgarian or Chinese in origin.
But NK News said ISIS got its hands on North Korean-made weapons by capturing them from government forces in Syria. The two countries maintained close ties since the 1970s and the North exported various weapons to Syria, including the upgraded T-55 tanks and portable surface-to-air missiles. [Chosun Ilbo]
The South Korean government plans to support President Obama’s ISIS strategy with humanitarian assistance aid:
South Korea expressed support Thursday for U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan for airstrikes in Syria and expanded strikes in Iraq to defeat the Islamic State militant group.
Obama said Wednesday he won’t hesitate to take action against the Islamic State in Syria, as he pledged to “degrade, and ultimately destroy” the extremists responsible for beheading two American journalists.
“South Korea voices its support to the efforts by the international community to defeat the Islamic State militant group,” Noh Kwang-il, spokesman for Seoul’s foreign ministry, told a regular press briefing. “As part of such support, Seoul has already announced its plan to provide a combined US$1.2 million in aid (to displaced Iraqi people).”
South Korea said in June and August that it plans to offer $200,000 in humanitarian assistance and an additional $1 million to help Iraqi refugees amid escalating violence in the country. [Yonhap]
Isn’t amazing that just a year ago the US wanted to bomb the Syrian government and now the US is planning to become the Syrian government’s Air Force. You can read more about the new ISIS strategy at this Yahoo News link, but here is another example of how so many things have flipped in such a short period of time:
Before the speech, senior administration officials cited the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force as the legal basis for taking the fight to Syria. Strikingly, a little over a year ago, in a major counterterrorism address at the National Defense University in Washington, Obama said he wanted to “refine and ultimately repeal” the AUMF, which President George W. Bush had relied on for his Global War on Terror.
