Taliban free kidnapped road engineer

Taliban insurgents have freed a Turkish engineer they kidnapped a month ago as he worked on a road project in southern Afghanistan, officials said today.

The governor of southern Ghazni province said engineer Hasan Onal was now in the Afghan government’s hands. Confirmation of his release followed a senior Taliban official’s announcement that Onal had been handed over to tribal elders Saturday.

“Finally we have succeeded in persuading Taliban commander Mullah Rozi Khan to release the Turkish engineer,” Haji Asad Ullah Khan said. Onal was fit and healthy, he added.

Onal, who works for the Turkish company Gulsan-Cukurova, was abducted along with his Afghan driver on October 30 while returning to a camp for workers repairing the Kabul-Kandahar highway.

The driver was freed with a ransom note demanding the release of Taliban prisoners being held in Ghazni.

The governor said he had seen Onal, and that he would be handed over to Turkish Embassy officials.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul confirmed the release, saying Onal “is the guest of a clan leader whom we trust. He will be delivered in the morning to the embassy”.

Mullah Rozi Khan, who described himself as a top Taliban official in southern Zabul province, told news organisations by phone: “Taliban leaders have decided to hand over the Turkish engineer to tribal elders because he’s a Muslim.”

Khan said Onal was freed without any “dealing” and that the decision came after the Afghan government released two Taliban prisoners before last week’s Islamic holiday of Eid-ul-Fitr.

The Taliban also expected the government to release six more prisoners, Khan said.

Taliban attacks have plagued the road project on which Onal works. Four construction workers were killed at the end of August. De-mining operations along the road were suspended earlier this month after a carjacking.

International aid agencies have scaled down operations in Afghanistan’s south and east due to escalating violence, amid signs that Taliban rebels are trying to undermine the country’s reconstruction under the US-backed government.

In northern Afghanistan, two attacks launched against Afghan soldiers taking part in a UN-sponsored weapons collection programme forced the UN to suspend travel along two main roads in the area, an official said today.

No one was hurt in the attacks by two Northern Alliance factions, but they damaged Afghan National Army vehicles.

The attacks were between November 21 and 23 in Jawzjan and Balkh provinces, he said.

The United Nations, which has offices in the Balkh province capital, Mazar-i-Sharif, suspended operations along the road between there and Jawzjan’s capital, Shibirghan.

That suspension was lifted on Sunday, a UN spokesman said. But the other, on the road between Mazar-i-Sharif and another Balkh province district, was kept in place because of recent factional fighting.