Remaining hostages still alive: Taliban

Kabul: All of the remaining 22 Korean hostages held by the Taliban in Afghanistan were alive on Thursday, a spokesman for the Taliban said, adding the group had hope for a peaceful settlement of the crisis.

"They are safe and alive," Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an unknown location. "They (the Afghan government) has given us hope for a peaceful settlement of the issue," he added.

This was confirmed by a senior Afghan official on Thursday.

"I was awake all night and if the Taliban had killed any of them I would have known," said General Ali Shah Ahmadzai, provincial police chief of Ghazni province where the 22 remaining hostages are being held and where one was killed on Wednesday.

The Taliban said the Afghan government had been given until late Wednesday night (2030 GMT) to agree to exchange the group for eight imprisoned rebels, but the deadline passed without word from the kidnappers.

"No, they have not killed any of the hostages and we are trying to contact the Taliban for resumption of talks," the Ghazni police chief told Reuters.

Earlier reports by some media that eight hostages had been released have been denied by officials, negotiators and a spokesman for the Taliban.

The fate of the 22 Christian volunteers had hung in the balance overnight, after the rebels shot dead one hostage and dumped his bullet-ridden body near where the group was seized last week.

He was identified in Seoul as the group's leader, Bae Hyung-kyu, a pastor who would have turned 42 on the day he was murdered.

South Korea's government strongly condemned the murder Bae, calling it an unforgiveable atrocity.

"The government and the people of South Korea condemn the kidnapping of innocent civilians and the atrocity of harming a human life," said Baek Jong-chun, presidential Blue House chief national security adviser.

"Harming innocent civilians can never be justified and we will never forgive this kind of inhumane act," he said in a nationally televised statement.

The Taliban accused the government and South Korean negotiators of failing to act in good faith after Kabul rejected demands for eight named rebels to be freed from prison.

Initially the Taliban had also insisted South Korea withdraw all its troops serving with an international force in Afghanistan -- something Seoul had planned to do before the end of the year anyway.