Breaking: Taliban Kills One German Hostage And Gives Germany 50 Minutes To Announce Afghan Pullout Or Last Two Will Be Slaughtered
The Taliban did not yet mention the Koreans
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A purported Taliban spokesman said the militant group shot and killed one of its two German hostages on Saturday and that the other would be killed within hours unless Germany announced its troops would leave Afghanistan.
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said the German was shot at 12:05 p.m. and that the other would be killed at 1 p.m. unless Germany announced a pullout. Ahmadi did not mention the at least 18 hostages from South Korea also held by the hard-line militia.
“The Germans haven’t said they would pull out their troops from Afghanistan, that’s why the Taliban’s high commanders decided to kill the German,” Ahmadi told The Associated Press by satellite phone from an unknown location. “Now we are giving them until 1 p.m. and if the German government won’t pull out its troops, we will kill the other as well.”
The two Germans and five of their Afghan colleagues were kidnapped on Thursday while working on a dam project in central Wardak province. A day later, militants kidnapped at least 18 South Korean Christians riding on a bus in Ghazni, one province to the south.
Ahmadi also warned the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO forces not to try to rescue the hostages, otherwise all would be killed. The provincial police chief in Ghazni province said his forces were working “carefully” to not trigger any retaliatory killings.
“The enemy has threatened that there shouldn’t be any kind of search operation for the Korean citizens, otherwise we will kill them, that’s why we are being very careful,” said Ali Shah Ahmadzai. “We have surrounded the area but are working very carefully. We don’t want them to be killed.”
Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, has said Seoul had until noon on Saturday to withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan, otherwise the South Korean hostages would be killed. Earlier on Saturday he said there had been no change in that demand.
The Korean troops in Afghanistan largely work on humanitarian projects such as medical assistance and reconstruction work. The 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.
“We are determined now to make more effort to give hope to the people,” Korean Lt. Col. Kim Seoung Ki, 924th Korean hospital commander, said in a recent interview. “We will continue making contributions to bring peace in this land.”
In South Korea, President Roh Moo-hyun vowed Saturday to make sincere efforts to win the release of the hostages, but did not detail what those efforts would be. He said 23 South Koreans had been abducted, but did not give an explanation for the discrepancy in the number of those kidnapped.
South Korea’s Foreign Minister Song Min-soon reiterated Seoul’s plans to withdraw 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” to pull its troops out of the war-ravaged country by the end of this year, he said.
The South Korean government informed parliament late last year that it would terminate its troop mission in Afghanistan and bring them home before the end of this year. South Korea has about 200 troops serving with the 8,000-strong U.S.-led coalition.
In the largest-scale abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, 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.
(AP)
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sad how these days theres even a possibility that this threat would make a country bow down, instead of making them that much more bloodthirsty to destroy them
July 21st, 2007 at 1:23 amhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaWKPpU2Uzc
(we thought Mike Vick was bad)
July 21st, 2007 at 1:59 amHigh dive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-QNEwhFZvQ&mode=related&search=
July 21st, 2007 at 2:01 amNuke the entire area. End it all.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:26 amIf he’s calling from a satellite phone it’s not exactly an (unknown location).
July 21st, 2007 at 2:36 amThe other German has been killed as well.
July 21st, 2007 at 2:47 amIt is time for the Germany to stand up and take the fight to the Taliban. Instead of rewarding terrorist for their actions it is time to punish them. Germany should increase their military presence from 3,000 troops to 13,000 troops.
South Korea is a disgrace. South Korea should do the same increase their 200 humanitarian troops to 2000 fighting troops, instead of its cowardly plan to pack up and leave Afghanistan by the year’s end.
July 21st, 2007 at 3:06 amI wonder how Spain would handle this?
July 21st, 2007 at 3:50 amThe Talibastards are trying the “spanish option”. You know, kill innocent woman and children in order to make a point. Where’s the outrage from CAIR-less? From the UN?
chirp chirp….nothing but crickets huh?
You do not fight a 7th Century mentality with a 21st century mindset. You fight them with that which they understand and respect: lead and steel.
It is also time to put Musharaff on notice, that if he is not willing to flush that toilet that is Waziristan, we’re going to do it for him.
Perhaps Pervez has gone soft and has forgotten how to fight.Works like this: Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
This isn’t the time for candy-ass rhetoric or girlie-man leadership. We can roll up these neo-philistines once and for all. This is the time for carthaginian diplomacy.
July 21st, 2007 at 4:03 amA sign of desperation, don’t hold your breath waiting for the MSN to condemn this.
July 21st, 2007 at 4:05 amIf Germany and Europe hell the West still had ball they would have responded that they were giving the taliban 40minutes to return the hostages or at such point the German government would begin carpet bombing 20 taliban town/village strongholds.
If the western the gen pop no longer has the stomach for a “long war” then our only option is a fast war. That would entail Roman style mass brutality to quickly suppress the enemy either via fear or death by mass.
July 21st, 2007 at 5:48 amOmg how cruel. There’s just one of them left now.
July 21st, 2007 at 5:50 amOne hostage died of a heart attack. One is still alive, according to CNN. The taliban lied? No? Really?
July 21st, 2007 at 6:16 amBack in Vietnam the ROK (Republic of Koprea) troops were some of the meanest nastiest monsters on the battlefeild. Maybe Korea has gotten soft, if not they should unleash those dogs again.
Unleash the dogs of war.
July 21st, 2007 at 7:01 amBill, we were told they would light like campfires in the middle of the night to attract attention to themselves. I was always one to hold my breath until sunrise. I still have problems with barking dogs. Follow the sound of the barking dogs and you had an audio picture of the area.
July 21st, 2007 at 9:12 amI read about some of the nasty stuff the ROK troops would do to the VC, one account said they would bend a tree down and tie it to the arms of a VC while tying their legs to the ground. Then they would go to work on them.
It was said the VC were deathly afraid of the ROK troops because of the stuff they would do to the VC they captured.
However barbaric this was it was effective. I only wish we would untie the hands of our soldiers and let them go a little medieval on some of these bastards.
July 21st, 2007 at 6:26 pm