Frantic talks to save Taliban's SKorean hostages

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN: Afghan officials continued frantic talks on Monday with Taliban militants who have threatened to kill 23 South Korean hostages by sunset unless their demands are met.   

The Islamic fighters -- who earlier released the bullet-riddled body of one of their two German hostages -- have demanded that 23 of their fellow fighters be freed from jail before 1430 GMT, a deadline they had extended by 24 hours.   

"We are working on the issue constantly, around the clock," said Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary. "We have more hope of success for the release of both the South Koreans and the German. "We hope to win their release via talks rather than military operations."   
 
Afghan troops have surrounded the Qara Bagh district of Ghazni province where the Taliban are holding the aid workers, who are mostly female in their 20s and 30s and members of a South Korean church, the defence ministry said.   

"We have positioned our forces in the area," said Afghan defence ministry spokesman Mohammd Zahir Azimi. "We are awaiting further orders... We will carry out military operations to free the hostages only if we are told to do so."   

The militants' spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi warned that if attacked they would kill the captives, the largest group of foreigners taken hostage since the country's US-led invasion in 2001. The South Korean foreign ministry said Seoul was in contact with the kidnappers through "various direct and indirect channels."   

Ghazni province police chief Alishah Ahmadzai, said early Monday talks through tribal chiefs and religious elders "have resumed today. The Taliban has assured us that the hostages are in good health."   

An Afghan defence ministry official, who asked not to be named, told AFP: "We strongly believe that the issue will be solved via negotiations."  

The Koreans were abducted last Thursday on the main highway leading from Kabul to the insurgency-wracked south, a day after two German engineers and five Afghans were captured on the same road.   

The Taliban have also demanded that Berlin and Seoul withdraw their forces from the war-torn country, where 3,000 Germans serve under NATO command, and some 200 South Korean troops are stationed as part of a US-led coalition.   

Taliban spokesman Ahmadi, speaking by phone from an unknown location, has repeatedly claimed both Germans and the five Afghans were shot dead Saturday, while Germany said it believes one of the Germans is still alive.   

It earlier said the other hostage had died of a heart attack in captivity. Bashary said the German's body bore several bullet wounds, but said it was unclear whether the militants had shot him dead or fired bullets into the body later in a bid to add force to their threat against the other captives.   

"At this stage the cause of his death is not clear," said Bashary. "The forensic tests will show whether he died of a heart attack and was later shot, or whether he was murdered with gun fire."   

In Berlin foreign ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger confirmed that German officials saw bullet wounds in the body of the 44-year-old building engineer when it was transferred to a Kabul hospital on Sunday.   

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said "it is our mission" to save the second German hostage but warned that her government would "not accept blackmail" from the al-Qaeda linked insurgents, saying this would be dangerous.   

South Korea has dispatched a crisis team to Kabul and said it was in communication with the rebels, with Seoul also reiterating that it will pull out its troops this year under its existing withdrawal plan.   

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's spokesman Siamak Hirawi said "the interior and foreign ministries and intelligence services are working together in consultation with the South Korean delegation and the South Korean embassy here to win the release of the South Koreans."   

In South Korea, a nation agonising over the fate of its citizens, the government Monday announced new rules to punish unauthorised travel to Afghanistan with fines and possible jail terms.   

Both the government and their families have stressed that the Koreans, belonging to a Presbyterian church on the outskirts of Seoul, were on an aid mission and not an evangelical one.   

The double hostage crisis is the latest abduction targeting the 37 countries with forces in Afghanistan, where the US invasion ousted the Taliban regime sheltering al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks.