More attempts at foreign policy by blackmail, a la the Madrid bombings of March 2004. By Noor Khan for Associated Press:
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – A purported Taliban spokesman said the hardline militia on Saturday shot and killed two German hostages because Germany’s government didn’t announce that its troops would leave Afghanistan.
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said the Germans were shot to death. They had been kidnapped on Wednesday, along with five Afghan colleagues, in the southern province of Wardak while working on a dam project.
“The German and Afghan governments didn’t meet our conditions, they didn’t pull out their troops,” Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Ahmadi offered no proof for the claim of the killings; he said the Taliban would give further information about the two bodies later.
A spokesman for the German government and the nation’s Foreign Ministry in Berlin could not immediately confirm the reports.
Militants on Thursday kidnapped at least 18 South Korean Christians riding on a bus in Ghazni, one province south of Wardak. Ahmadi said previously the Koreans would also be killed Saturday if South Korea didn’t withdraw the 200 troops it has here, but he gave no information about their condition.