Taliban set new deadline as S Korean hostage killed

FE Team | Published: August 01, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

GHAZNI, July 31 (AFP): Afghanistan's Taliban set the government a new deadline of noon (0730 GMT) Wednesday to meet its demands in order to save 21 South Koreans, a day after a second hostage was killed.
The hardline Islamic militia wants the government to free at least eight Taliban prisoners in Afghan jails, a demand government negotiators have rejected.
"If our demands are not met by then, we will start killing the rest of the South Koreans," Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told the news agency.
The bullet-riddled body of the second hostage to be killed since 23 were captured nearly two weeks ago was found overnight in an area of the southern province of Ghazni, about 140 kilometres (90 miles) south of Kabul.
"It was the body of a South Korean. There were bullet wounds in the body," Ghazni police chief Alishah Ahmadzai told the news agency.
The news agency correspondent who saw the corpse said it had been dumped at the side of the road and had four or five bullet holes to the body and head.
The South Korean foreign ministry identified the victim as Shim Sung-Min, reported to be aged 29.
"The government cannot help feeling outrage and strongly denounces the ruthless killing by the kidnappers' group," ministry spokesman Cho Hee-Yong said in Seoul.
"The government makes it clear that it will surely hold accountable those responsible for the sacrifice of our citizen," added presidential spokesman Choen Ho-Seon.
The body of Bae Hyung-kyu, a 42-year-old pastor who had been leading the church group, which had been on an aid mission in risky southern Afghanistan, was found in the same area Wednesday last week.
Government negotiators said efforts to free the remaining hostages, 16 of whom are women, would continue.
"We are doing our utmost to secure their release," Ghazni governor Mirajuddin Pattan told the news agency, reiterating authorities wanted more time.
"We had demanded the Taliban give us two days but it seems that they have not accepted," he said.
The negotiators have called on the militants to unconditionally release the women in the group on the grounds that it is against their religion and Afghan culture to take female hostages.
The Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera ran footage late Monday it said showed the hostages, with the women seated, wearing Islamic-style headscarves and looking weakened.
All the women were ill, Ahmadi said Tuesday.
The South Korean evangelical church group, mostly in their 20s and 30s, were captured while travelling by bus on a key highway from the troubled southern city of Kandahar.