KEY POINTS:
South Korea has sent a senior envoy to Afghanistan to step up efforts to free 22 Christian volunteers held hostage by the Taleban after rebels killed the leader of the church group.
But a Taleban spokesman said more hostages would be killed unless the Government releases eight rebel prisoners overnight.
"The administration of Kabul has asked us to give them till 12 noon today," spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an unknown location yesterday.
In a first known contact with the outside, a South Korean woman hostage pleaded for help and a speedy release of all the hostages in a telephone interview with CBS News.
The weeping voice, which spoke in Korean and an Afghan dialect of Farsi, was believed to be that of Yoo Hyun-Joo, a 32-year-old nurse.
"We are held here in very difficult conditions every day," Yoo said. "Please help us so that we can come out as soon as possible."
Seoul sent its chief presidential national security adviser, Baek Jong-Chun, to boost co-ordination with the Afghan Government in negotiations to free the Korean church volunteers.
The hostages, including 18 women, were abducted from a bus in Ghazni province last week. Ghazni's Governor, Mirajuddin Pathan, urged the Taleban to at least free the women. "Keeping women as captives has not happened in Afghanistan's history." He said the Taleban had given the Government a list of prisoners they wanted freed as part of an exchange, but he could not say whether they would be released.
The past 18 months has seen rising violence in Afghanistan, with daily clashes between Taleban insurgents and Afghan and foreign troops.
General Ali Shah Ahmadzai, provincial police chief of Ghazni province where the 22 remaining hostages were being held, said the Government was keen to resume negotiations with the kidnappers.
The fate of the Christian volunteers had hung in the balance earlier yesterday, after the rebels killed one hostage and dumped his bullet-ridden body near where the group were seized.
He was identified as the group's leader, Bae Hyung-Kyu, a pastor who turned 42 the day he was killed.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pledged not to swap prisoners for hostages.
- Reuters
