The South Korean Embassy in Baghdad has issued an advisory against non-essential travel to South Korean residents, business people and travelers in Iraq.
In e-mails sent to local South Korean residents and business people, the embassy said the security situation in the Gulf nation was becoming increasingly volatile ahead of the June 30th handover of sovereignty to Iraqis.
In particular, the embassy called on South Koreans in Iraq to avoid traveling on a major highway connecting the Jordanian capital of Amman and Baghdad, citing abductions of foreigners that have recently occurred on the highway.
The travel advisory follows a string of assassination campaigns by armed insurgents against local police, civil servants and politicians in an apparent bid to discredit the U.S.-led occupation and disrupt reconstruction efforts.
Earlier on Saturday, Iraq's Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, Bassam Qubba, was assassinated on his way to work in Baghdad.