BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Masked gunmen kidnapped a South Korean diplomat in Moslem west Beirut Friday, and Lebanon's top kidnapping investigator threatened to quit unless action is taken to end the 'epidemic' of abductions.
The latest kidnapping came only hours after two Lebanese employees of NBC News were released in Beirut after 45 days in captivity at the hands of relatives of a kidnapped Shiite Moslem truck driver. Police sources declined to say if the two were exchanged for the kidnapped Shiite.
Police said five men armed with AK-47 assault rifles and several revolvers intercepted a chauffeur-driven Peugeot sedan carrying First Secretary Kim Wou-Tchol and Second Secretary Do-Chae Sung to work Friday morning.
The gunmen fired at the embassy car, puncturing a front tire and forcing it to stop on the road near the South Korean Embassy, then pushed Do into the trunk of their olive green Mercedes sedan and sped off.
Kim and the Lebanese driver were left unharmed. The embassy later contacted Prime Minister Rashid Karami and the powerful Shiite Moslem Amal militia, which said it had men out searching for the 43-year-old diplomat.
'We just cannot understand why he was kidnapped,' said an embassy spokeswoman, noting Do was not involved in politics. 'We have no political enemies in Beirut.'
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the abduction. A radio report speculated North Korea might have been involved in the incident but a North Korean Embassy official dismissed the report as 'silly.'
An estimated 2,300 people have been kidnapped in Lebanon since the start of the civil war in 1975 and the majority are feared dead.
Police sources said 39 foreigners have been kidnapped in west Beirut since Moslem militias seized control in February 1984, prompting most Western missions to move to safer Christian east Beirut.
Among the missing are six Americans, four Frenchmen, a Briton and an Italian seized in west Beirut between March 1984 and June 1985.
In the last six months, west Beirut has also been plagued by a series of abductions for ransoms.
Speaking to Beirut's As Souhoufiya news agency Friday, Col. Hisham Kureitem, who heads a kidnap investigation committee, threatened to resign unless his panel received substantial help in freeing some 470 known victims.
Kureitem said he had received virtually no cooperation from civil and military officials.
'I fear that a country abused by kidnapping in Lebanon will hit back with the support of the U.N. Security Council resolution against terrorism,' said Kureitem, a retired army officer. 'We need a real solution as kidnapping is becoming an epidemic.'
