Deadline looms as Taliban threaten to kill hostages

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban militants threatened to start killing Monday their 22 South Korean hostages if the government did not accept by noon their demand for the release of jailed rebels.

The Islamic extremists have already killed the leader of the group of Christian aid workers captured 12 days ago, saying he was shot last week because talks on Afghanistan's latest foreign hostage crisis had stalled.

The insurgents have also, however, let four other deadlines pass without incident. Monday's 0730 GMT deadline was the last, Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP on Sunday as a stalemate emerged over the demand for a prisoner release, which a government negotiator said was not up for discussion.

"We give a last deadline of tomorrow 12 o'clock to the Afghan government to give us their last word if they can release our eight suggested prisoners."

"Otherwise we will start killing the hostages," Ahmadi said.

President Hamid Karzai said during a meeting with a South Korean special envoy Sunday that his government was doing its best to secure the release of the 22 who include 16 women.

But "no prisoners will be released," said a leading member of a government-appointed negotiating team, Mahmood Gailani, a parliamentarian from the troubled southern province of Ghanzi where the group was caught July 19.

"It's not government policy to exchange prisoners," he told AFP.

Kabul was roundly condemned when it released five Taliban prisoners in March to free an Italian hostage, and Karzai vowed afterwards such a deal would not be repeated.

Gailani said the government wanted the Islamic fundamentalists to unconditionally free the women and would then consider other Taliban demands.

The holding of women as hostages or prisoners was against Islamic law and Afghan culture, he said, a statement repeated by Karzai in Sunday's talks with South Korean presidential envoy Baek Jong-Chun.

There are concerns for the health of the 22, who were said to be in their 20s and 30s and had been on an evangelical and aid mission to devoutly Islamic Afghanistan.

"Some of the hostages have some health problems due to the weather or psychological pressure they feel," Ahmadi said Sunday with temperatures in southern Afghanistan in the high 30s centigrade (90s Fahrenheit).

The hostages had been divided into small groups and were being held in three different provinces, Ahmadi said. Medicine sent to them had been received and been passed along, another spokesman said.

Meanwhile Pope Benedict on Sunday called the kidnapping a "grave violation of human dignity that clashes with every elementary norm of civility and rights and gravely offends divine law".

Eighteen of the remaining hostages are women. Yousuf said some of the captives being held in small groups at different locations were sick.

Ghazni's governor, Mirajuddin Pathan, said medicines the Korean government had wanted to send could not be delivered on Saturday because the Afghan team could not establish contact with the Taliban.

Pathan said the government did not want to use force to rescue the hostages. "We have no plan of attack. We are trying to send the delegation for more talks," he told Reuters.

In addition to Afghan forces, foreign troops are also stationed in Ghazni.

South Korean special envoy Baek Jong-chun met Karzai on Sunday to discuss ways to end the hostages' ordeal.

"We are well aware of Afghan culture and the difficulties the Afghan government and people are faced with in their fight against terrorism, and will respect their decision to end the hostage crisis," a statement by Karzai's office quoted the Korean chief national security advisor as saying.

Ghazni, Monday, AFP, Reuters