"We will go ahead with the troops dispatch as planned. There are no changes to our plan," a defence ministry spokesman said.
In a video tape screened on Al-Jazeera television an armed Islamist group yesterday threatened to behead the hostage unless Seoul promises within 24 hours to send no more troops to Iraq.
Footage showed the hostage identified as Kim Sun-Il pleading for his life in English.
"Please get out of here, I don't want to die ... My life is important," he said.
Three masked, armed men standing behind him said they belonged to the Tawhid wa al-Jihad (Unification and Holy War) group, led by Al-Qaeda operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi whom Washington blames for a long list of attacks in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
According to media repots here quoting South Korean diplomats in Iraq, Kim was an employee of a Korean military-supplies provider for the US army.
The video was broadcast two days after South Korea, which already has 660 army engineers and medics in southern Iraq, said it would start deploying 3 000 troops in early August to help rebuild the northern Kurdish region.
The hostage's mother in a radio interview here begged the Islamist group to free her son.
"He is my only son. Please bring him back to us," said Shin Young-Ja on CBS radio.
South Korea's foreign ministry said Kim was abducted on June 17. – Sapa-AFP.
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