SEOUL, Nov. 19 (UPI) ─ A suspected campaigner for the al-Nusra Front in Syria was detained in South Korea as Seoul called for increased security at immigration checkpoints and an expanded budget to target terrorism.
South Korea police said that an Indonesian national residing in the country illegally was apprehended on Wednesday. The suspect, 32, was only identified as “A,” and had actively promoted the al-Nusra cause on social media platforms, Yonhap reported. The National Police Agency said the man was arrested on suspicion of supporting al-Nusra.
In April, the suspect uploaded a video of himself waving an al-Nusra flag at Mount Bukhan, a popular site close to the presidential Blue House. In October, he had uploaded a photograph of himself wearing a hat emblazoned with the al-Nusra logo.
Al-Nusra front has 10,000 operatives in Syria and elsewhere and was responsible for the massacre of 200,000 Druze minority members, who are loyal to Assad.
According to South Korea police, “A” had entered South Korea in 2007 on a fake passport and lived in the country for eight years. The suspect was arrested in the city of Asan in South Chungcheong Province and had lived in Daegu, South Korea’s third-largest city.
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, South Korea’s government and the ruling Saenuri party called an emergency meeting on Wednesday, and agreed to increase an anti-terrorism budget by $85 million, The Korea Herald reported.
The budget is meant to increase security at immigration checkpoints, but the largest portion of the budget is to go toward defending South Korea against North Korea‘s chemical, biological and radiological threats.
