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A purported Taliban spokesman said yesterday the hard-line militia has extended its deadline for the lives of 23 South Korean hostages until this evening.

 

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said late yesterday the militants extended the deadline another day after the Afghan government refused to release any of the 23 Taliban prisoners the insurgents want freed.

 

A relative of South Koreans kidnapped in Afghanistan cries as watching TV news reports of negotiation in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 23, 2007.

 

The militants have pushed back their ultimatum on the Koreans' fate at least three times. Afghan officials in Ghazni province have met the militants in person and are also negotiating over the phone, but little progress appears to have been made so far.

 

German hostage alive

 

Meanwhile, a German hostage reported to have been killed by the Taliban is alive and, along with four Afghans, is still being held, the same spokesman said.

 

"The German national and four Afghans we reported had been killed are still alive," Yousuf said from an unknown location by telephone.

 

The spokesman had previously said two German engineers and the five Afghans with them had been killed.

 

He said the group holding them had told him they were about to kill the hostages as government troops were closing in on them and then he had lost touch with them as they made their escape.

 

Yousuf said the Taliban leadership wanted the release of 10 Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government and the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan as conditions for freeing of the hostages.

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Berlin will not give in to the demands of the kidnappers to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

 

German authorities have seen the body of the second German hostage, who died in captivity in Afghanistan. The body had gunshot wounds.

 

Dozens of militants killed

 

US-led troops killed more than four dozen insurgents in a battle in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand, without any civilian casualties, the US military said yesterday.

 

But a resident of the area said at least eight civilians died in Sunday's battle in the province's Musa Qala district. The resident said the victims, who belonged to one family, were killed in a US air raid during the battle.

 

Also on Sunday, 14 Taliban were killed in a raid by Afghan police in the southern province of Zabul, the Afghan Interior Ministry said.

 

(China Daily July 24, 2007)