(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

   BAGHDAD, June 20 (Xinhuanet) -- An Iraqi group threatens to kill a South Korean hostage kidnapped in Iraq, Al-Jazeera television reported Sunday.

   The TV aired a video, showing the purported South Korean, who was identified as Kim Soong Il, begging for his life and pleading with his government to withdraw troops from Iraq.

   The kidnappers, who identified themselves as Monotheism and Jihad, a group linked to the Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, gave the South Korean government 24 hours starting from Sunday night to meet its demand.

   "Our message to you Korean government and people," a speaker said in Arabic. "We demand you to withdraw your forces from our land. Don't send more troops to this land or we will send you the head of this Korean."

   South Korea, which has already 600 military medics and engineers in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, announced on Friday that it would send 3,000 soldiers to northern Iraq beginning in early August.

   South Korea plans to send 900 troops to Kurdish-controlled Irbilin early August, followed by about 1,100 troops between late August and early September. An additional 1,000 soldiers will travel to Iraq later.

   Last month, Zarqawi's group beheaded American hostage Nick Berg in Iraq.

   On Friday, Paul Johnson, a 49-year-old American chief engineer working for top US defense contractor Lockheed Martin, was beheaded on Friday by militants allegedly linked to Al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia.  Enditem