the militant movement said it shot and killed two German hostages who were taken in a separate seizure of foreigners.
In a statement, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said the first German was shot at 12:05 p.m. local time Saturday, July 21 and that the other would be killed at 1 p.m. unless Germany announced a pullout of its troops from the country. As that announcement was not forthcoming, the second German was apparently killed. There was no immediate independent confirmation. Ahmadi did not mention the up to 23 Christian hostages from South Korea also held by the hard-line movement.
"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 (AP) news agency 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."
Earlier in Berlin in Berlin the German Foreign Ministry downplayed reports that the Taliban is behind the abductions. Spokesman Martin Jaeger said there are "contradictions" between different claims about the abductions.
"EMERGENCY TASK"
But the ministry also stressed that an "emergency task force is working very intensively on a quick release of both men."
The two Germans and five of their Afghan colleagues were reportedly kidnapped on Thursday, July 19, while working on a dam project in central Wardak province. Hours later, militants kidnapped at least 23 South Korean Christians, many of them women, riding on a bus in Ghazni, one province to the south.
They are young Korean Christians who were engaged in short-term evangelistic activity and service for children in Kandahar, said Joseph Park of the Christian Council of Korea (CCK) in published remarks. South Korea has no soldiers in Afghanistan but has contributed 200 medical workers to the coalition forces.
Ahmadi warned the Afghan government and US 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.
PASSENGER BUS
In a statement, Ghazni Province deputy police chief Mohammad Zaman said gunmen took the Christians from a passenger bus on the country’s main highway from Kandahar to Kabul. "They are safe with us, we are investigating them and our demands and reaction will be announced later," said Taliban spokesman Ahmadi by telephone.
Oh Soo-In, a senior administrator at the Saem-Mul Protestant Community Church near the Korean capital Seoul, told reporters the abductees were from her church. She said the group had been on an evangelical mission in Afghanistan since July 13 and was due to return to South Korea on July 23.
Afghan authorities last year turned back around 2,000 South Korean Christians, citing concerns for their safety amid local suggestions that they were there to proselytize. Hundreds of Koreans came anyway but were subsequently expelled.
Afghanistan is an Islamic republic where conversion from Islam or attempting to convert Muslims is regarded as a "serious crime," in several areas. Some Christian converts have been threatened with execution, including Abdul Rahman an Afghan man who converted to Christianity and could have been executed for renouncing Islam.
10,000 CONVERTS
He received asylum in Italy last year. Christian Freedom International (CFI), a US-based religious right group, said last year it believes there are at least 10,000 Christian concerts in Afghanistan. was based, but CFI is known to have close contacts with persecuted individuals and churches in key areas of the world.
CFI said that many of these "new Christians live in secret" for fear they may be killed at a time when tensions are rising. Authorities claim insurgents have stepped up "terror tactics" to
demonstrate the central Afghan government is not in control and pressure NATO-led forces to leave.
Despite the reported dangers, CCK’s Park said South Koreans would continue to visit Afghanistan to preach the Gospel en to spread aid. “e cannot turn away from poor people and children there just because of safety risks,” United Press International (UPI) quoted him as saying.
Shortly before the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban government put eight Western aid workers 16 Afghan co-workers on trial for allegedly spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ, saying they may face execution. They were freed unharmed after the fall of the government as the Taliban retreated from Kabul. (With BosNewsLife Research. BosNewsLife Anti-Terrorism Task Force, covering the threats of our time).
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