Afghan guards faked attack on S Korean base: S Korea

Afghan authorities have found that local guards staged a fake rocket attack in June on the construction site of a South Korean base in an apparent scam to get more danger pay, South Korean officials said on Friday.

Seoul: Afghan authorities have found that
local guards staged a fake rocket attack in June on the
construction site of a South Korean base in an apparent scam
to get more danger pay, South Korean officials said on Friday.

There were no casualties or damages from the June attack
on the site that would become the base for a South Korean
reconstruction team in the northern province of Parwan,
Foreign Ministry official Lim Jung-taek said.

Some of the security personnel fired two rounds of
rocket-propelled grenades at the site and their accomplices at
the site also opened fire in a staged exchange, the official
said.

The guards were among the 120 local security detail and
dozens of South Korean construction workers who were at the
site when the rockets fell, Lim said.

Lim, the ministry`s director for foreign press relations,
said Afghan officials told Seoul that the fake attack appeared
to have been staged in a bid to receive more danger allowance.

He did not say when the investigations would end or what
consequences the guards might face.

South Korea`s Yonhap news agency reported that four
guards had been detained, citing unidentified ministry
officials. However, Lim was not able to confirm that.

The incident occurred one day before the reconstruction
team was to officially launch its mission in Afghanistan,
causing alarm in South Korea, which previously had withdrawn
troops from Afghanistan.

South Korea withdrew troops from the war-stricken country
in 2007 after the Taliban killed two of its citizens in a
hostage standoff while demanding that Seoul immediately remove
its forces.

Last month, Seoul deployed a provincial reconstruction
team of 48 South Korean civilian aid workers and eight
policemen to Afghanistan. About 230 South Korean troops are
also stationed there to protect the team.

PTI

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