Arabic note found at airport not seen as terror threat: analysis

A message written in Arabic found at South Korea's main airport should not be seen as a real Muslim extremists' terror threat, analysis by an expert showed Tuesday.

Two butane canisters were found last week in a suspicious box in a men's bathroom at Incheon International Airport, South Korea's main gateway. The message, which was found in the box with the canisters, read, "This is the last warning to you. God will punish."

The incident has raised the terror alert in South Korea following a series of terrorist attacks around the globe, including one in Paris last year.

But analysis by Yonhap News Agency's Arabic Language News Team showed that the message does not seem to be related to previous threats by Muslim extremists, given that it has clumsy sentence structure and some grammatical errors.

The message is completely different from typical warnings issued by Muslim terrorist groups, which usually cite the Koran or are written in the name of Allah, according to Park In-sook, head of the Yonhap unit.

The threatening message seems to have been made using Google's translation service tool, the analysis showed.

She said the note has poor sentence structure and grammatical errors indicative that it must not have been written by someone who is fluent in Arabic.

The third sentence of the message literally translates into "Allah will punish Allah," which cannot be accepted by Muslims as it is considered blasphemy, Park added.

Police are looking into the case, saying that they have not ruled out the possibility that a Muslim terror organization might be involved, although the chances are deemed slim at this moment. (Yonhap)