S Korea to withdraw troops from Afghanistan

South Korea plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year as scheduled, South Korea’s Foreign Minister said today.

“The government is in preparations to implement its plan” to pull its troops out of the war-ravaged country by the end of this year as previously planned, Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told reporters at a briefing. His comments came as Taliban militants threatened to kill at least 18 kidnapped South Korean Christians, including 15 women, today unless Seoul pulls out its 200 troops from Afghanistan.

Song said that 23 South Koreans were kidnapped and indicated that they are in a safe condition.

In the largest-scale abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, the South Koreans were kidnapped at gunpoint from a bus in Ghazni province’s Qarabagh district on Thursday as they travelled on the main highway from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said yesterday “They have got until tomorrow at noon to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, or otherwise we will kill the 18 Koreans.”

South Korea has about 200 troops serving with the 8,000-strong US-led coalition.