Taliban militants threaten to kill more Korean hostages

The Taliban threatened to kill more of the remaining 21 South Korean captives today, while Afghanistan said it would not release insurgent prisoners – the militia’s key demand to ending the two-week long hostage crisis.

Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights group, called for the immediate release of all remaining South Korean captives, and accused the Taliban of committing war crimes by taking and killing the hostages.

The noon (08.30am Irish time) deadline for the captives’ lives approached a day after Afghan police found the body of the second hostage slain since the volunteers with a church group were seized two weeks ago. The group’s pastor was killed last week.

A purported Taliban spokesman said some of the prisoners the militants want released are held at the US base at Bagram.

The Taliban said more Koreans will die if its demands are not met by midday today.

The militants have extended several previous deadlines without consequences, but killed 29-year-old Shim Sung-min on Monday after the latest deadline passed.

The original 23 South Koreans were kidnapped while riding a bus July 19 on the Kabul-Kandahar highway. They are the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion that drove the Taliban from power.

Human Rights Watch said the Taliban have kidnapped at least 41 Afghan civilians so far this year and killed at least 23 of them. The rest are missing.

“The taking of hostages is a war crime,” Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

In South Korea, relatives and a civic group pleaded for more US involvement, and the president’s office used more diplomatic language to prod the Americans.

“The government is well aware of how the international community deals with these kinds of abduction cases,” the president’s office said, an apparent reference to the US policy of not negotiating with terrorists. “But it also believes that it would be worthwhile to use flexibility in the cause of saving the precious lives of those still in captivity.”

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said there is regular contact between US and South Korean officials on the standoff, but would not comment on specifics.

President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman said officials were doing “everything we can” to secure the hostages’ release, but that freeing militant prisoners was not an option.

“As a principle, we shouldn’t encourage kidnapping by accepting their demands,” said Humayun Hamidzada.

In March, Karzai authorised freeing five captive Taliban fighters for the release of an Italian reporter, but called the trade a one-time deal. He was roundly criticised by the United States and western nations for the move.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a purported Taliban spokesman, said eight prisoners must be released by midday today, and that some were held by the US at Bagram.