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Travis King: Who Is the US Soldier Who Crossed into North Korea? 

A TV screen shows a file image of American soldier Travis King during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. (AP)
A TV screen shows a file image of American soldier Travis King during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. (AP)
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Travis King: Who Is the US Soldier Who Crossed into North Korea? 

A TV screen shows a file image of American soldier Travis King during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. (AP)
A TV screen shows a file image of American soldier Travis King during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. (AP)

North Korea confirmed for the first time on Wednesday that it is holding American soldier Travis King, saying he crossed the border last month to escape racism and mistreatment in the US military and society.

Who is Private King?

Private Travis T. King, who joined the US Army in January 2021, is a cavalry scout with the Korean Rotational Force, which is part of the US security commitment to South Korea.

He was assigned to an element of the US 1st Armored Division and was now administratively attached to a unit in 4th Infantry Division, a US army spokesperson said.

His record includes routine awards such as the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Defense Service Medal and Overseas Service Ribbon.

His family is from Racine, Wisconsin.

Why did he cross to North Korea and where is he now?

King's motivation and exact location remain unconfirmed.

He "harbored ill feeling against inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the US Army" and wanted to stay in the North or a third country because he was "disillusioned at the unequal American society," according to North Korean state news agency KCNA.

KCNA said he was held by the North Korean army after he crossed, but did not elaborate.

The Pentagon on Tuesday said that it could not verify King's alleged comments, but that it was working through all channels to bring him home.

King's uncle, Myron Gates, told ABC News in August that his nephew, who is Black, had experienced racism during his military deployment, and after he spent time in a South Korean jail, he did not sound like himself.

Another uncle, Carl Gates, told the Daily Beast his nephew had been "breaking down" after the death of a 7-year-old cousin this year.

How did he get to the border?

King had served nearly two months in detention in South Korea and was being escorted to Seoul's Incheon International Airport to fly home and face probable disciplinary action. But he never made it to his plane.

He had passed alone through security to his gate at the airport, where he told American Airlines staff that he lost his passport, an airport official told Reuters.

Escorted by an airline worker with the approval of a South Korean justice ministry official, King left the boarding zone and was seen exiting through a departure gate.

The next day King joined a bus tour of the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice.

What happened at the border?

Roughly 24 hours after leaving the airport, he sprinted into North Korea while touring the Joint Security Area, which sits astride the border.

Sarah Leslie, a tourist from New Zealand who was on the tour with King, said she saw him suddenly run across the border as US and South Korean troops tried to stop him.

"I probably only saw him running for like a few seconds and that's all it would have taken to get across the border," she said.

What disciplinary action was he facing?

Two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had been due to face US military disciplinary action, without saying what the action was linked to.

A South Korean court ruling said King pleaded guilty to assault and destruction of public goods stemming from an incident in October and on Feb. 8 the Seoul Western District Court fined him 5 million won ($4,000).

He faced two allegations of assault, and pleaded guilty to one instance of assault and destroying public property for damaging a police car during a profanity-laced tirade against Koreans, according to court documents.

King spent time in a South Korean prison, however, in lieu of paying the fine.

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‘I Thought I’d Died.’ How Landmines Are Continuing to Claim Lives in Post-Assad Syria

Members of the ministry of defense clear landmines left behind by the Syrian army during the war, in agricultural land south of Idlib, Syria, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP)
Members of the ministry of defense clear landmines left behind by the Syrian army during the war, in agricultural land south of Idlib, Syria, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP)
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‘I Thought I’d Died.’ How Landmines Are Continuing to Claim Lives in Post-Assad Syria

Members of the ministry of defense clear landmines left behind by the Syrian army during the war, in agricultural land south of Idlib, Syria, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP)
Members of the ministry of defense clear landmines left behind by the Syrian army during the war, in agricultural land south of Idlib, Syria, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP)

Suleiman Khalil was harvesting olives in a Syrian orchard with two friends four months ago, unaware the soil beneath them still hid deadly remnants of war.

The trio suddenly noticed a visible mine lying on the ground. Panicked, Khalil and his friends tried to leave, but he stepped on a land mine and it exploded. His friends, terrified, ran to find an ambulance, but Khalil, 21, thought they had abandoned him.

"I started crawling, then the second land mine exploded," Khalil told The Associated Press. "At first, I thought I'd died. I didn’t think I would survive this."

Khalil’s left leg was badly wounded in the first explosion, while his right leg was blown off from above the knee in the second. He used his shirt to tourniquet the stump and screamed for help until a soldier nearby heard him and rushed for his aid.

"There were days I didn’t want to live anymore," Khalil said, sitting on a thin mattress, his amputated leg still wrapped in a white cloth four months after the incident. Khalil, who is from the village of Qaminas, in the southern part of Syria’s Idlib province, is engaged and dreams of a prosthetic limb so he can return to work and support his family again.

While the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war came to an end with the fall of Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8, war remnants continue to kill and maim. Contamination from land mines and explosive remnants has killed at least 249 people, including 60 children, and injured another 379 since Dec. 8, according to INSO, an international organization which coordinates safety for aid workers.

Mines and explosive remnants — widely used since 2011 by Syrian government forces, its allies, and armed opposition groups — have contaminated vast areas, many of which only became accessible after the Assad government’s collapse, leading to a surge in the number of land mine casualties, according to a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.

‘It will take ages to clear them all’

Prior to Dec. 8, land mines and explosive remnants of war also frequently injured or killed civilians returning home and accessing agricultural land.

"Without urgent, nationwide clearance efforts, more civilians returning home to reclaim critical rights, lives, livelihoods, and land will be injured and killed," said Richard Weir, a senior crisis and conflict researcher at HRW.

Experts estimate that tens of thousands of land mines remain buried across Syria, particularly in former front-line regions like rural Idlib.

"We don’t even have an exact number," said Ahmad Jomaa, a member of a demining unit under Syria's defense ministry. "It will take ages to clear them all."

Jomaa spoke while scanning farmland in a rural area east of Maarrat al-Numan with a handheld detector, pointing at a visible anti-personnel mine nestled in dry soil.

"This one can take off a leg," he said. "We have to detonate it manually."

Psychological trauma and broader harm

Farming remains the main source of income for residents in rural Idlib, making the presence of mines a daily hazard. Days earlier a tractor exploded nearby, severely injuring several farm workers, Jomaa said. "Most of the mines here are meant for individuals and light vehicles, like the ones used by farmers," he said.

Jomaa’s demining team began dismantling the mines immediately after the previous government was ousted. But their work comes at a steep cost.

"We’ve had 15 to 20 (deminers) lose limbs, and around a dozen of our brothers were killed doing this job," he said. Advanced scanners, needed to detect buried or improvised devices, are in short supply, he said. Many land mines are still visible to the naked eye, but others are more sophisticated and harder to detect.

Land mines not only kill and maim but also cause long-term psychological trauma and broader harm, such as displacement, loss of property, and reduced access to essential services, HRW says.

The rights group has urged the transitional government to establish a civilian-led mine action authority in coordination with the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) to streamline and expand demining efforts.

Syria's military under the Assad government laid explosives years ago to deter opposition fighters. Even after the government seized nearby territories, it made little effort to clear the mines it left behind.

‘Every day someone is dying’

Standing before his brother’s grave, Salah Sweid holds up a photo on his phone of Mohammad, smiling behind a pile of dismantled mines. "My mother, like any other mother would do, warned him against going," Salah said. "But he told them, ‘If I don’t go and others don’t go, who will? Every day someone is dying.’"

Mohammad was 39 when he died on Jan. 12 while demining in a village in Idlib. A former Syrian Republican Guard member trained in planting and dismantling mines, he later joined the opposition during the uprising, scavenging weapon debris to make arms.

He worked with Turkish units in Azaz, a city in northwest Syria, using advanced equipment, but on the day he died, he was on his own. As he defused one mine, another hidden beneath it detonated.

After Assad’s ouster, mines littered his village in rural Idlib. He had begun volunteering to clear them — often without proper equipment — responding to residents’ pleas for help, even on holidays when his demining team was off duty, his brother said.

For every mine cleared by people like Mohammad, many more remain.

In a nearby village, Jalal al-Maarouf, 22, was tending to his goats three days after the Assad government’s collapse when he stepped on a mine. Fellow shepherds rushed him to a hospital, where doctors amputated his left leg.

He has added his name to a waiting list for a prosthetic, "but there’s nothing so far," he said from his home, gently running a hand over the smooth edge of his stump. "As you can see, I can’t walk." The cost of a prosthetic limb is in excess of $3,000 and far beyond his means.