Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/world/asia/29afghan.html
August 29, 2007
Taliban Begin to Release Hostages
By DAVID ROHDE [Afghanistan] [hydra] [insurgency] [followup] [the British having some success that others may learn from?] [the 2007 offensive and mixed messages] [on the one hand, NATO seemed to anticipate and stymied Taliban and al Qaeda fighters on several fronts] [the commonality of hostage taking] [*******]
KABUL, Afghanistan, August 29 — Taliban militants released 12 of their remaining 19 Korean hostages in three stages today, Taliban and Afghan officials announced. Seven Koreans remain in Taliban custody.
The most recent release was of four hostages — three women and a man — at dusk, according to Ali Shah Ahmedzai, the Ghazni police chief. Five hostages were released this afternoon and three were released this morning.
Mr. Ahmedzai said the Taliban handed over the four hostages this evening to tribal elders in Askar Kot, a remote village. The series of releases today suggested that the Koreans’ six-week ordeal was coming to a swift close.
The original 23 Korean missionaries were kidnapped on the main highway between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar last month. The Taliban killed two male hostages when the Afghan government refused to meet their demand that eight Taliban prisoners be released in exchange for the Koreans. Several weeks later, two female hostages were released as a sign of good will.
On Tuesday, South Korean and Taliban negotiators reached an agreement on the release of the hostages. South Korea promised to withdraw all of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year, as it has long planned. It also said that all South Korean missionaries would leave Afghanistan by the end of August. The Taliban, for its part, dropped its demand that the eight prisoners be released.
Speculation was rife in Kabul today that the South Korean government had paid a ransom for the hostages, a step that could encourage the kidnapping of foreigners. Taliban, South Korean and Afghan officials all deny that a ransom was paid.
An Afghan government minister criticized South Korea for making the hostage agreement with the Taliban and warned that it could embolden the group, The Associated Press reported.
“One has to say that this release under these conditions will make our difficulties in Afghanistan even bigger,” Commerce Minister Amin Farhang told the German radio station Bayerischer Rundfunk. “We fear that this decision could become a precedent. The Taliban will continue trying to take hostages to attain their aims in Afghanistan.”
In a separate incident, a suicide bomber killed six people, including two Afghan army soldiers, in a small village in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan this afternoon, according to Mohammed Akram Khapalwak, the provincial governor.
The suicide bomber blew himself up in a small bazaar in Bermal district, which lies near the Pakistan border, he said. Nine civilians were also injured in the attack.
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said in a telephone interview today that five hostages — four women and one man — were released just outside the Afghan city of Ghazni Wednesday afternoon. Three female hostages had been released near there earlier in the day.
Haji Zaher, a local tribal elder who picked up the hostages from the Taliban this afternoon, said the hostages appeared to be in good condition. “They are in Ghazni city,” Mr. Zaher said in a telephone interview. “They were healthy and very happy.”
Mr. Zaher, who helped broker the release agreement, said he ventured into Taliban-controlled territory twice today to take custody of the hostages from the Taliban. He said one of the Korean women released this afternoon called herself “Haleema,” an Afghan name, and was able to speak Dari, one of Afghanistan’s two national languages. “She was the one who could express her happiness to me,” he said.
Mr. Zaher said the hostages had been divided into smaller groups and were being held in different parts of Ghazni Province. The three released this morning were in Khogiyani district, he said. The five released this afternoon were in Andar district, a Taliban stronghold.
The Taliban have increasingly used kidnapping as a tactic in Afghanistan this year, gaining publicity, prisoner releases and, most likely, ransom. In a much-criticized deal this spring, the Afghan government freed five senior Taliban members in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist, Danial Mastrogiacomo, after coming under intense pressure from the Italian government.
Since then, the Afghan government has taken a harder public line and said it will not negotiate with the Taliban over hostages. Echoing the United States’ position, Afghan officials say exchanging prisoners for hostages will only encourage more hostage taking.
A German engineer and four Afghans kidnapped by the Taliban a day before the South Koreans remain in Taliban custody. Taliban officials say they will not free the engineer and his Afghan coworkers until the German government agrees to unspecified demands.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company