Taliban ‘kills two German hostages’
Group threatens to kill 23 South Korean hostages unless demands are met.
Ahmadi also said that five Afghan engineers abducted alongside the two Germans have also been killed.
Taliban have warned US and Nato forces against forcibly trying to free the hostages |
A spokeswoman for the German foreign ministry said that Berlin had received no clear evidence that the two Germans were in the hands of the Taliban.
She said a special crisis task force at the ministry was working closely with the Afghan government to secure the release of the hostages.
“We can’t give up our efforts now,” she was quoted as saying in an interview with Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. “The Afghan people can’t be abandoned.”
Withdrawal
South Korea has reiterated its plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year, as scheduled.
While Seoul has no combat troops in Afghanistan, it has a military contingent of about 200 engineers and doctors deployed in the war-torn nation.
Song Min-soon, South Korea’s foreign minister, said he had spoken to his Afghan counterpart and that officials from both countries were working to secure the Koreans’ release.
He said a team would leave for Afghanistan later on Saturday, and that the Afghan side had already set up a special task force to deal with the case.
James Bays, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Kandahar, said: “They want to see the troops withdrawn, either immediately or in the next few days.”
The spokesman also said that the Taliban believes that the South Koreans are missionaries.
The Taliban has seized a number of foreign nationals as part of its campaign to overthrow the Afghan government and drive out its Western backers.