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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan: Taliban militants on Sunday
renewed threats to kill an Afghan reporter they are holding hostage
unless the government agrees to release some jailed insurgents in
the next 24 hours.
The fate of five other Taliban
hostages including two French nationals captured last week would be
decided following a Monday deadline in the case of Ajmal Naqshbandi,
who was kidnapped last month with an Italian journalist.
“Monday is the last deadline.
He [Ajmal] will be killed unless the government complies with our
demands,” Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone.
Ahmadi reiterated the
fundamentalist movement’s demand for the release of Taliban
prisoners in Afghan jails. Originally, they had requested the
freedom of two militants in exchange for Naqshbandi.
The spokesman said the fate of
two French aid workers and three Afghan assistants abducted on
Tuesday would be addressed once the deadline had passed.
“They are in our custody and
we’ll decide their fate once we’re done with Ajmal’s case,”
Ahmadi said.
The French aid workers from Terre
d’Enfance (A World for Our Children) were abducted in southwestern
Nimroz province. The province’s governor and police chief said the
hostages were likely to have been moved to neighboring Helmand.
Naqshbandi was captured in
Helmand province on March 4 with Italian journalist Daniele
Mastrogiacomo, who was freed around two weeks later in a
controversial exchange for five Taliban prisoners.
Their Afghan driver was beheaded.
President Hamid Karzai vowed
Friday not to make any more hostage deals with the Taliban, saying
the one he made last month to free Mastrogiacomo was an
“extraordinary” situation.
“It was an extraordinary
situation and won’t be repeated again,” Karzai told a press
conference in Kabul on Friday.
“No more deals with no one and
with no other country.”
 --AFP
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