Apparently Korea is now on Al Qaida’s most wanted list. Al Qaida’s #2 leader Alman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian, encouraged terrorist attacks against South Korea and a bunch of other countries involved in fighting world wide terrorism. Here is a excerpt from an article in the Chosun.

“We should not wait until U.S., British, French, Jewish, South Korean, Australian or Polish forces enter Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen and Algeria before we resist,” said the tape. The tape called for indiscriminate attacks against the U.S. and its allies, saying “Let us start resisting now. The interests of America, Britain, Australia, France, Poland, Norway, South Korea and Japan are spread everywhere.”

Even though the Korean government is more worried about economic influence in the Middle East than fighting global terrorism, their contributions are still enough to make the terrorism hit list. Now what I’m wondering is if this is some message to start a terrorist strike in South Korea? For you all that haven’t heard American soldiers are still on a 2100 curfew in Korea. Is this in response to a terrrorist threat to Korea? Possibly. Check out this Stars and Stripes Article for more details.

This just makes me think about if I was a terrorist hiding here in Korea, why would I strike a US base? It would be extremely difficult and would only cause very few casualties at best. If my single motivation is killing as many Americans as possible I would hit a club with many soldiers in it instead. However, it would be difficult to bring an explosive into a club with Korean & American security on the look out for such threats.

If I was a terrorist looking to kill anyone for political benefits the easiest target would be a busy subway station during rush hour. The Taegu subway fire two years ago is unfortunately a blue print I can see these terrorists using. That fire killed 130 people which is slightly more then what was killed in the Madrid train bombings.

Taegu subway fire could be blueprint for future terrorist attacks.

If the terrorists could get those same casualty results by an attack here in Korea you will see a anti-American back lash against the US from the leftists here in Korea. This would serve the terrorists’ interests of driving a wedge between the US-ROK alliance to get the Koreans troops pulled from Iraq. However, I don’t think the Korean government would withdraw their soldiers. I really think Koreans have a lot more backbone then people give them credit for. If Al Qaida causes a successful attack in Korea I could see Korea possibly deploying combat forces to Afghanistan in response to such an incident. Deploying combat forces to Afghanistan would serve a dual role of hunting Al Qaida terrorists but also would provide invaluable combat experience for ROK Army troops in a highly mountainous environment which any conflict here on the Korean peninsula would involve.

Fortunately Korean security is fairly robust due to the threat from North Korea. Plus bringing weapons and explosives into the country is also extremely difficult due to guns being illegal here in Korea. However, I really hope the government has improved subway security to prevent another Taegu incident from happening because unfortunately this appears to a vulnerable area the terrorists may try to exploit. Yes Korea, it does suck to be on the terrorism hit list.