Two of the South Korean aid workers held hostage in Afghanistan were to be released within hours, a Taliban commander said yesterday, as new talks began over the three-week crisis.
Commander Abdullah Jal said the two women were still in the hands of the militants, but would be released yesterday as a goodwill gesture from the Islamist hardliners.
"God willing, they will be freed this afternoon as a gesture of good intention from the Taliban leading council," said Jal, the commander for the Ghazni region where 23 South Koreans were abducted on July 19.
PHOTO: AP
Two of the hostages have since been murdered by the Taliban, which has threatened to kill the remaining 21 unless the Afghan government meets their demands to release a similar number of key Taliban prisoners.
A Taliban delegation and a South Korean team meanwhile began a third day of talks at the offices of the Afghan Red Crescent Society in Ghazni, 140km south of Kabul.
"The third round of talks started between the Taliban and South Koreans," Ghazni Province intelligence chief Mohammad Jaseem Khan said.
The talks, which began on Friday, were being held behind closed doors. Journalist were barred from even assembling outside the venue yesterday.
Intelligence agents had warned photographers against taking any pictures in the town, an AFP photographer said.
The talks coincided with fresh hopes that two of the 16 women in the group would be free later in the day.
The Taliban first announced the release on Saturday but hours later the regular spokesman for the group, Yousuf Ahmadi, said the handover appeared to have been delayed by "transport difficulties."
Earlier yesterday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Ahmadi as saying, "Our leaders have changed their minds and suspended their earlier decision to free two female hostages."
Ahmadi however did not rule out the possibility of a release later.
"The plan to release two female hostages first is still valid, but the timing has not been fixed yet," he said. "There might be confusion and misunderstanding ... I hope the situation will be resolved quickly."
South Korean officials refused to confirm the report, and Ahmadi could not be reached directly for comment.
Direct negotiations between the Taliban and a South Korean team are seen as one of the final options to save the group.
On Saturday the Taliban repeated a demand for the release of jailed militants in exchange for the remaining hostages, a condition the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has rejected, saying it could encourage kidnappings.
The hardliners are also involved in the separate abduction last month of two German engineers, one of whom has since been killed.
The Taliban has also demanded a prisoner swap for the surviving German, who is being held with four Afghans.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats