By Seo Soo-min
Staff Reporter

Two South Koreans were killed and two others severely injured on Sunday in an attack in Tikrit, northern Iraq, the Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry said.

Two of our nationals died and two were hurt in an attack on a highway near Tikrit, said Lee Kwang-jae, director-general of Middle East and African Affairs Bureau.

The dead were identified as Kim Man-soo, 46, and Kwak Kyung-hae, 61, officials said.

The other two, Lee Sang-won, and Lim Dae-shik, survived the attack but Lee was in critical condition, the official added.

Both men are employees for Omu Co., a South Korean company subcontractor to a U.S. firm refurbishing electrical grids in Iraq.

Their deaths mark the first time South Korean nationals died during or after the U.S. started the war in Iraq.

According to Reuters, the car the two men rode were on the same highway near Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, where two Japanese diplomats were shot to death on Saturday.

The attack is the latest of its kind on nationals of countries assisting the U.S. in the war in Iraq such as Japan and Spain.

Seven Spanish intelligence agents perished in an attack in Iraq Saturday.

South Korea has some 600 military engineers and medics working in Iraq, and the government has decided to send some 3,000 more troops, possibly including combat troops.

Sunday’s attacks on South Korean nationals will likely reinforce negative public opinion on Seoul’s additional troop dispatch to Iraq.

It is too early to mention such issues, said Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck in a briefing, asked on the correlation between the incident and the troop dispatch.

More investigation is needed to verify whether the men were attacked because of their South Korean nationality, he added.

The company the deceased worked for, Omu Co., is based in Seoul and has sent some 20 employees to Iraq.

But the South Korean Embassy in Baghdad had not been aware of their presence as businessmen are not required to notify the embassy upon entrance to the country.

Despite the latest incident, there is no plan to evacuate the makeshift South Korean Embassy in Baghdad, officials said.

ssm@koreatimes.co.kr