President seeks to protect SKorea from terrorism

By Alex Jensen

SEOUL

President Park Geun-hye warned Tuesday that lawmakers would be "held accountable" if South Korea falls victim to terrorism.

After a series of high-profile attacks led by Daesh elsewhere in the world, Park then reissued an earlier call for Seoul's National Assembly to pass an anti-terror bill that has been backed up for nearly 15 years.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting, the president was quoted by local news agency Yonhap as cautioning that even Daesh is aware that "no basic law is in place in South Korea to prevent terrorism."

Park was in France last week, when she paid a visit to Paris' Bataclan Theater -- a notable recent target for extremists.

She expressed her concern that the South is currently not geared up to support global intelligence sharing efforts.

While the country's rival parties did agree last month to work on swiftly approving the long-awaited legislation, the main opposition NPAD has continued to raise its worries about the bill handing more powers of investigation to the National Intelligence Service (NIS).

The NIS has a record of being embroiled in privacy invasion and corruption allegations.

But the intelligence agency claims that a handful of South Koreans have already been swayed by Daesh ideology -- one case saw a local teenager travel to Syria earlier this year.

An Indonesian man, who had illegally entered South Korea, was also arrested in recent weeks for links to an al-Qaida affiliate.

Time is running short in the ongoing regular Assembly session, which closes this Wednesday.

South Korea maintains a high level of security as it technically remains in a state of war with North Korea -- the presence of nearly 30,000 American military personnel in the South is an additional factor that could draw the attention of extremists opposed to U.S. foreign policy.