An Afghan official and a purported Taliban spokesman said that the kidnappers had extended the deadline for the release of 22 South Korean hostages until Friday noon, according to dpa. "The Ministry of Interior has promised to solve the matter and asked us to extend our deadline. We have extended it until tomorrow 12 pm," spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa on Thursday. Waheedullah Mujadidi, the head of the mediation group, also said that since a top envoy from Seoul would arrive Thursday night, his group sent tribal elders to the kidnappers to extend the deadline. "They extended until Friday noon," he said. One week since the kidnapping of South Korean Christian volunteers by Taliban extremists, disagreement and varying demands by the abductors has hindered progress in securing the safe return of the 22 hostages, an Afghan official said. A top official from the Afghan government side, who is also member of the mediation group, said that the kidnappers have divided into three groups over different demands. While one group, mainly comprised of Taliban insurgents from the restive southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, has demanded the release of their group members jailed in Afghanistan, the other two groups seemed willing to accept different amounts of ransom in exchange for the captives, the source told dpa. Dpa also learnt that two hostages - a man and a woman - were about to be released Wednesday night, but at the last minute, as they were about to be handed over to the mediators, they caught sight of two armoured vehicles and retreated. The talks resumed Thursday after stalling on Wednesday afternoon following the killing of one the hostages by the militants and an attempt to kill Afghan mediators, one member of the mediation team said. "Even after the attack on us and the killing of one of the hostages, we resumed the talks, but when the Taliban wanted to hand over two of the hostages, a man and a women, they saw US military vehicles in the area, escaped back and halted all contact," the official said, requesting anonymity. Another member of the mediation team, Khawaja Mohammad Sedeqi, said negotiations had resumed Thursday morning. "According to our information, all 22 Korean hostages are safe and alive, and negotiation is going on," Sedeqi said. Taliban spokesman Ahmadi also confirmed that the 22 hostages were alive and said," Since the government promised to try to solve the matter in peaceful way, we are still waiting for negotiation." Meanwhile, Baek Jong Chun, presidential secretary for security affairs, condemned the "act of brutality in killing an innocent civilian" during a press conference in Seoul before departing for Afghanistan to try to secure the release of the remaining hostages. The kidnappers "will be held accountable for taking the life of a Korean citizen," he said. Afghan officials on Wednesday said they had recovered the bullet- riddled body of a South Korean hostage, one of the group of 23 kidnapped in the country by Taliban militants. South Korea also confirmed Thursday the killing of the hostage, identified as 42-year-old pastor Bae Hyung Kyu - the leader of the Christian volunteers - and demanded the immediate release of all those still being held. The hardline Islamic movement had vowed Wednesday to start killing some of the group as Afghan authorities had not yet responded to their demands for the release of eight Taliban prisoners. The government did not confirm conflicting reports carried by South Korean state media that eight of the hostages had been released following the payment of a ransom by Seoul. Afghan officials had earlier denied the reports. Afghan and Taliban officials had earlier expressed confidence that the negotiations were going well, and both sides were optimistic that the matter would be settled soon. After a week in captivity, concerns are also rising about the health of the hostages and whether they are receiving proper food and water, but Afghan officials said they were being fed the same food as the kidnappers and that the US Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), had been sending them bottled drinking water through local channels. "The hostages are properly fed. That's not a problem", Ahmadi said.
