New deadline set for Koreans

Ghazni, Afghanistan: Afghan elders offered to negotiate for the release of 22 South Korean hostages that a militant spokesman said yesterday have been split into small groups and are being fed bread, yogurt and rice a week after their capture.

South Korea expressed outrage at the slaying of one of the hostages, a 42-year-old pastor, and vowed those responsible would be held accountable for his death.

But the South Korean government also said it opposed launching a military operation to try to free the captives if it put them at further peril. The Taliban reiterated their demand that jailed militants be freed in exchange for the captives, and set the latest of several deadlines - midday today - for the demand to be met or more hostages would be killed.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun spoke with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai yesterday, and they agreed to fully cooperate on freeing the remaining captives safely, Roh's office said. Roh yesterday sent envoy Baek Jong-chun to Afghanistan to help in the effort.

A Taliban spokesman said the remaining hostages were unharmed, despite the passing of a deadline overnight.

"They are safe and alive," Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said by telephone from an undisclosed location. The Afghan government, he said, "has given us hope for a peaceful settlement of the issue".

The hostages, including 18 women, were abducted from a bus in Ghazni province last week. Ghazni's governor Mirajuddin Pathan urged the Taliban to at least free the women.

"Keeping women as captives has not happened in Afghanistan's history. They should release the women," the governor said.

He said the Taliban had given the Afghan government a list of prisoners they wanted freed as part of an exchange, but he could not say if the central government would release them or not.

The Taliban had given the Afghan government until 8.30pm GMT (11.30pm UAE time) on Wednesday to agree to exchange the group for imprisoned rebels, but the deadline passed without word from the kidnappers until Yousuf spoke yesterday morning.

General Ali Shah Ahmadzai, provincial police chief of Ghazni province where the 22 remaining hostages were being held, said the government was keen to resume negotiations with the kidnappers. He also believed the hostages were safe.

Kabul (AFP) Afghan and US-led forces killed more than 50 Taliban in a 12-hour battle in the country's opium-growing heartland, while 10 rebels and a policeman died in a separate clash, officials said yesterday.

Coalition warplanes were called in to bomb rebel hideouts in the most intense clash, which broke out late on Wednesday in the insurgency-hit southern province of Helmand, a US-led coalition said.

"More than 50 insurgents were confirmed killed with an unknown number wounded."