WORLD / Asia-Pacific
Taliban extends deadline for hostages
(AP)
Updated: 2007-07-24 00:44
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A purported Taliban spokesman said Monday the
hard-line militia has extended its deadline on the fate of 23 South
Korean hostages who were seized last week.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said the
militants had pushed back the deadline until Tuesday evening after the
Afghan government refused to release any of the 23 Taliban prisoners the
insurgents want freed.
The developments came as the US-led coalition reported killing some 50
militants in southern Afghanistan's poppy-growing heartland.
A woman, a family member of one of the kidnapped South Koreans in
Afghanistan, cries as she waits for television news about them in Seoul
at around 1300 GMT July 23, 2007. [Reuters]
The kidnappers have extended their ultimatum at least three times. Afghan
officials in Ghazni province have met the militants in person and are
also negotiating over the phone, but little progress appears to have been
made so far.
"If the government won't accept these conditions, then it's difficult for
the Taliban to provide security for these hostages, to provide health
facilities and food," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by satellite
phone. "The Taliban won't have any option but to kill the hostages."
Though some of Ahmadi's statements turn out to be true, he has also made
repeated false claims, calling into question the reliability of his
information.
Deputy Interior Minister Abdul Khaliq, meanwhile, said Afghanistan was
not prepared to make a deal "against our national interest and our
constitution," though he did not explicitly rule out freeing any
prisoners.
President Hamid Karzai in March authorized the release of five Taliban
prisoners in exchange for a kidnapped Italian reporter, but he called the
trade a one-time deal. Karzai was also criticized by the United States
and European nations who felt that trade would encourage more kidnappings.
Khail Mohammad Husseini, a lawmaker from Ghazni province, where the
Koreans are being held, said a delegation of provincial leaders tried to
meet with the kidnappers Monday but that the militants didn't show.
He said officials were also speaking with the militants by telephone, and
that the insurgents at one point had increased their demands, saying all
jailed militants in Ghazni province had to be released. But Ahmadi denied
that the demands had changed, suggesting the Taliban weren't presenting a
unified front.
Meanwhile, Ahmadi also said the militants are still holding one German
and four Afghan hostages, despite the fact Ahmadi on Saturday claimed
those six people had been shot and killed.
He said the Taliban were demanding the release of 10 Taliban prisoners in
exchange for the German and Afghans. Originally there had been five
Afghan hostages, but one of them, the brother of Afghanistan's Parliament
speaker Arif Noorzai, "escaped" from Taliban custody, Ahmadi said.
Francesc Vendrell, the EU representative for Afghanistan, said officials
are not convinced the Taliban is actually holding the German and the
Afghans. Police have suggested that the five might be held by a separate
criminal group.
The body of the second German, Ruediger Diedrich, 43, was to be flown
back to Germany on Monday, where authorities will carry out an autopsy,
the German Foreign Ministry said. His body was discovered riddled with
bullet holes, but officials haven't concluded if he first died of another
cause and was later shot.
The South Korean hostages were kidnapped Thursday while riding on a bus
through Ghazni province on the Kabul to Kandahar highway, Afghanistan's
main thoroughfare.
The Afghan military has the region surrounded in case the government
decides the military should move in.
South Korea has banned its citizens from traveling to Afghanistan in the
wake of the kidnappings, said Han Hye-jin, a Foreign Ministry official.
He said Seoul also asked Kabul not to issue visas to South Koreans and
block their entry into the country.
South Korea had previously asked its nationals to refrain from visiting
Afghanistan, citing political instability.
Earlier, the South Korean church that the abductees attend said it will
suspend at least some of its volunteer work in Afghanistan. It also
stressed that the Koreans abducted were not involved in any Christian
missionary work, saying they only provided medical and other volunteer
aid to distressed people in the war-ravaged country.
Neither the Afghan nor Korean governments have commented on the purported
Taliban trade offer. A delegation of eight Korean officials arrived in
the capital of Kabul on Sunday and met with Karzai to discuss the crisis.
The 23 South Koreans, including 18 women, were working at an aid
organization in Kandahar, said Sidney Serena, a political affairs officer
at the South Korean Embassy in Kabul.
South Korea has about 200 troops serving with the 8,000-strong US-led
coalition in Afghanistan, largely working on humanitarian projects. They
are scheduled to leave Afghanistan at the end of 2007.
In the two-day battle in the Sangin district in Helmand province, the
insurgents tried to shoot down a coalition aircraft and attack soldiers
with a suicide car bomb, the coalition said. Coalition aircraft dropped
four bombs and Afghan forces counted "more than four dozen" insurgents
killed, it said.
The Sangin district chief, Eizatullah Khan, said a large group of Taliban
had attacked a convoy Sunday, and the resulting battle left more than 30
militants dead and many wounded.
Coalition and Afghan forces "only engaged legitimate military and enemy
targets to minimize the potential of Afghan casualties," said US Maj.
Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman. "We did this even as the insurgents
tried to create some propaganda value by placing innocent civilians in
harms way."
Civilian casualties have been a major problem for US and NATO forces this
year. Taliban militants often fight in populated areas or seek cover in
civilian homes, leading to the deaths of ordinary Afghans.
Officials reported a Norwegian coalition soldier was shot and killed
while on operation in central Afghanistan.
In Zabul province, Afghan police forces reported killing 14 "enemies"
during a 12-hour battle Sunday, including a Taliban commander identified
as Mohammad Hassan.
Afghan elders leading the hostage negotiations met with the kidnappers
Sunday and reported that the Koreans were healthy, said Khwaja Mohammad
Sidiqi, a local police chief in Ghazni district. The Koreans were
kidnapped there Thursday while riding on a bus from Kabul to Kandahar on
Afghanistan's major highway.
The Afghan military has the region surrounded in case the government
decides the military should move in.
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