South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's National Security Council held an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the apparent kidnapping in Iraq of a South Korean businessman, an official said.

Iraqi militants have threatened to behead the hostage if Seoul does not cancel plans to send 3,000 troops to Iraq, according to a videotape aired on Arabic television station Al Jazeera.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry -- which set up a task force to handle a crisis that could magnify public opposition to the deployment -- identified the man as 33-year-old Kim Sun-il. He was shown in the video footage pleading for his life.

South Korea's YTN television quoted his family as saying he had called, sobbing, from Iraq. He studied English literature at Seoul's Ivy League-style Korea University and is the seventh of eight children.

Yonhap news agency said Kim worked for a trading firm, Gana General Trading, and went to Iraq on June 15. The company had 12 employees in Iraq and has supplied military equipment to U.S. troops in Baghdad, the agency said.

"A task force was formed and they are holding a meeting this morning, presided over by vice a foreign minister," a foreign ministry spokesman said by telephone.

The National Security Council that advises Roh began a meeting at 8:00 a.m. (2300 GMT Sunday), a council official told Reuters.

There has been vocal opposition in South Korea to Seoul's decision to send troops to Iraq.

But Roh views the deployment as a tough but crucial gesture to support Seoul's main ally, the United States, which has 37,500 troops stationed in the South to deter North Korea

Source: Agencies