Danger for foreign nationals in Afghanistan

The Taliban has warned that it will continue to take foreign nationals as hostages, Agence France-Presse reported today.

Seeing abduction as a tool against the Afghan government and forces from other countries, Taliban spokesman Yousef Ahmadi states “The Kabul administration was saying that we do not exist and we are a group based outside Afghanistan. When we held face-to-face talks with the Koreans we showed that we’re here and have control over ground inside the country.”

Last week the Taliban released the remaining 19 South Korean hostages after setting two women free earlier in August. These two women, Kim Gi-Na and Kim Kyung-Ja, have spoken out about their ordeal, saying Taliban guards threatened them with rifles and lied about where they were being moved to, often citing South Korea as their destination. Furthermore, the male hostages have reported being beaten for not converting to Islam. Two South Korean men were killed while being held hostage.

Although the Kabul administration has asked foreign nationals to register with the police and keep authorities informed of their movements, the Taliban intends to continue to abduct people for ransom or exchange of Taliban prisoners. The radical group is currently holding a German engineer and four of his Afghan colleagues.

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