Taliban Offers Korean Hostage Swap

A purported Taliban spokesman said the hard-line militia killed two German and five Afghan hostages on Saturday but were willing to release 23 South Korean Christians in exchange for the freedom of imprisoned Taliban fighters.

The Afghan government, however, said it had contradictory information concerning the Germans, casting doubt on the purported spokesman's claims, and the German government said one hostage had died but the other was believed alive.

"Based on our information, one of the two Germans who was kidnapped has died," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.

"Everything indicates he was a victim of the stress of the kidnapping," Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to be a Taliban spokesman, said the Afghan and South Korean governments had until 7 p.m. (1430 GMT) Sunday to agree to the release of 23 Taliban militants or the Korean hostages would be killed.

He said the Germans and Afghans were shot to death because Germany did not announce the withdrawal of its 3,000 troops from Afghanistan. The seven were kidnapped on Wednesday in the southern province of Wardak while working on a dam project.

"The German and Afghan governments didn't meet our conditions," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location. Ahmadi offered no proof of the killings and said the Taliban would give information about the bodies later.

The Afghan government, however, said one of the Germans died of a heart attack and the second was still alive.

"The information that we and our security forces have is that one of these two who were kidnapped died of a heart attack," Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said. "The second hostage is alive and we hope that he will be released soon and we are trying our best to get him released."

Ahmadi earlier said the kidnapped Koreans, including 18 women, would also be killed Saturday if South Korea didn't withdraw its 200 troops. Late Saturday he changed those demands, and also said the militants were holding 23 Koreans, up from the 18 he earlier claimed. He said several Koreans spoke the Afghan languages Dari and Pashtu and had been mistaken for Afghans.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun urged the Taliban to "send our people home quickly and safely."

Roh also spoke with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and asked for cooperation to quickly win the release of the South Koreans, Roh's office said.

A senior Korean official said the South Korean government was "maintaining contact" with the Taliban.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a phone call to Karzai, expressed "grave concern" over the abductions and called on the Afghan government to "do its utmost" to secure the hostages' release.

The South Koreans were kidnapped at gunpoint from a bus in Ghazni province's Qarabagh district on Thursday as they traveled on the main highway from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar. It was the largest-scale abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Ahmadi warned the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO forces not to try to rescue the hostages, or they would be killed. The provincial police chief in Ghazni province said his forces were working "carefully" to not trigger any retaliatory killings.

"We have surrounded the area but are working very carefully. We don't want them to be killed," said Ali Shah Ahmadzai.

It was unclear what the Koreans were doing in Afghanistan. The Yonhap news agency reported that most of the hostages were members of the Saemmul Community Church in Bundang, just south of the South Korean capital, Seoul. A year ago, hundreds of South Korean Christians were ordered to leave Afghanistan amid rumors they were proselytizing in the deeply conservative Islamic nation.

Germany has 3,000 soldiers in NATO's International Security Assistance Force who are stationed in the mostly peaceful northern part of Afghanistan. South Korea has 200 soldiers in the U.S.-led coalition who largely work on humanitarian projects such as medical assistance and reconstruction work.

"We are doing whatever we can to secure their release, and we hope that those who have kidnapped them will respect the Afghan and Islamic culture not to harm them and let them go back to their homes safe and sound," Foreign Ministry spokesman Baheen said.

In South Korea, family members of kidnapped victims urged the government to accept the Taliban's demand, noting Seoul had already decided to bring home its soldiers by the end of this year.

"We hope that the immediate withdrawal (of troops) is made," Cha Sung-min, a relative of one of the hostages, told reporters.

South Korea's troops run a hospital for Afghan civilians at the U.S. base at Bagram, and the facility has treated over 240,000 patients. The kidnapped civilians are not affiliated with the military.

South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon reiterated Seoul's plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year as scheduled, hoping to appease the militants.

"The government is in preparations to implement its plan," he said.