WSJ: South Korean Ammunition Headed to Ukraine via US

File photo: Airmen with the 436th Aerial Port Squadron use a forklift to move 155 mm shells ultimately bound for Ukraine, April 29, 2022, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
File photo: Airmen with the 436th Aerial Port Squadron use a forklift to move 155 mm shells ultimately bound for Ukraine, April 29, 2022, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
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WSJ: South Korean Ammunition Headed to Ukraine via US

File photo: Airmen with the 436th Aerial Port Squadron use a forklift to move 155 mm shells ultimately bound for Ukraine, April 29, 2022, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
File photo: Airmen with the 436th Aerial Port Squadron use a forklift to move 155 mm shells ultimately bound for Ukraine, April 29, 2022, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Hundreds of thousands of South Korean artillery rounds are on their way to Ukraine via the United States, after Seoul's initial resistance toward arming Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The Journal, citing unnamed sources, said Seoul had reached a "confidential arrangement" with Washington to transfer the shells to the United States to be delivered to Ukraine, after Washington asked its Asian ally last year for artillery support.

Jeon Ha-kyu, spokesman at South Korea's defense ministry, said on Thursday that it had been in talks with the Pentagon on ammunition exports but that there were "inaccurate parts" in the WSJ report, declining to give details.

"There have been various discussions and requests, and our government will take appropriate measures while comprehensively reviewing the war and humanitarian situation in Ukraine," Jeon told a briefing.

A US ally and major producer of artillery ammunition, South Korea had so far ruled out sending lethal aid to Ukraine, citing business ties with Russia and Moscow's influence over North Korea, despite mounting pressure from Washington and Europe to supply weapons, Reuters reported.

President Yoon Suk Yeol, in an interview with Reuters in April, signaled the prospect of a change, saying it might be difficult for Seoul to adhere to only providing humanitarian and financial support if Ukraine faced a large-scale civilian attack or a "situation the international community cannot condone."

The Pentagon and Yoon's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

When asked on Wednesday about the potential to supply ammunition to Ukraine, South Korea's national security adviser, Cho Tae-yong, told parliament that officials will make a decision after monitoring developments.

Cho said there were no plans to send shells either directly or via Poland, but did not elaborate on cooperation with the United States.

The Journal report said Seoul officials "got cold feet" following media reports on the discussions late last year, but a "breakthrough" was made after Yoon visited Washington last month for a summit with President Joe Biden.



Germany Charges Syrian with War Crimes against Yazidis

Police in the German state of Thuringia. Reuters file photo
Police in the German state of Thuringia. Reuters file photo
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Germany Charges Syrian with War Crimes against Yazidis

Police in the German state of Thuringia. Reuters file photo
Police in the German state of Thuringia. Reuters file photo

A high-ranking member of the ISIS terrorist group in Syria has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Germany, partly for alleged involvement in the genocide against the Yazidi community, prosecutors said.

The suspect, a Syrian national identified as Ossama A. in line with German privacy law, joined ISIS in the summer of 2014 in the Deir ez-Zor region of eastern Syria, the German prosecutor-general's office said in a statement.

It said he is suspected of having led a local unit that forcibly seized 13 properties, mainly privately owned, which were used to house fighters, as office space or for storage, according to Reuters.

Two of the buildings were used by ISIS to imprison captured Yazidi women so that militants could sexually abuse and exploit them, according to Wednesday's statement, which listed aiding and abetting genocide among the charges against Ossama A.

"This was an integral part of the organization's goal of destroying the Yazidi religious community," it said.

The suspect was arrested in Germany in April 2024 and is being held in pre-trial custody.

Germany has emerged as a key prosecutor of Syrian war crimes outside of Syria under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

In early 2022, a former Syrian intelligence officer who worked in a Damascus prison was jailed for life in a landmark trial where he was convicted of murder, rape and sexual assault.

A senior German foreign ministry official said on Wednesday Berlin supports a UN body set up to assist investigations into serious crimes committed in Syria, particularly now that the long-reigning president Bashar al-Assad has been ousted.

"The IIIM is collecting evidence so that those responsible for these terrible crimes committed against countless Syrians can be held to account," minister of state Tobias Lindner said in a statement.

"What is clear is that the process of investigating and prosecuting these horrible crimes must be pursued under (the new) Syrian leadership," he added.

Opposition factions swept Assad from power late last year, flinging open prisons and government offices and raising fresh hopes for accountability

for crimes committed during Syria's more than 13-year civil war.

ISIS militants controlled swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014-17 before being routed by Western-led coalition forces and defeated in their last bastions in Syria in 2019.

ISIS viewed the Yazidis, an ancient religious minority, as devil worshippers and killed more than 3,000 of them, as well as enslaving 7,000 Yazidi women and girls and displacing most of the 550,000-strong community from its ancestral home in northern Iraq.

The United Nations has said ISIS attacks on the Yazidis amounted to a genocidal campaign against them.