The Taliban in Afghanistan has set a new deadline of noon local time, 0730 UTC, Wednesday for the release of prisoners in exchange for 21 remaining South Korean hostages.
The kidnappers set the latest deadline on Tuesday, a day after they killed a second captive, identified by a South Korean official as 29-year-old Shim Sung-min.
A Taliban spokesman says more hostages will be killed unless the Afghan government releases imprisoned Taliban militants. The Afghan government says it will not exchange prisoners for hostages.
On Tuesday, the Arabic television network Al Jazeera aired a video of a German hostage held separately by the Taliban. In the tape, the hostage pleaded for his life at gunpoint and urged the United States and Germany to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch urged the Taliban to immediately release all hostages in its custody, saying their abduction amounted to war crimes.
The body of Shim Sung-min was found Tuesday in Ghazni province, about 30 kilometers from where 23 South Korean Christian church members were abducted July 19. A South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, Cho Hee-yung, called the second hostage murder a merciless killing.
Last week, the Taliban killed the leader of the South Korean church group, 42-year-old Bae Hyung-ku. His body was also found in Ghazni province.
The 23 South Koreans were abducted while traveling by bus to southern Kandahar province, a Taliban stronghold. They are members of a Christian church who came to Afghanistan to do humanitarian work. - VOA News
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