€2.28m ransom demand hits hostage talks
Negotiations on the fate of three UN workers, including an Irish woman, kidnapped in Afghanistan have snagged over ransom demands, officials said today.
The Taliban-linked kidnappers said they were debating whether to ”get rid” of the hostages.
The latest in a string of deadlines set by the militants passed yesterday with no resolution of their public demand for the release of 26 jailed comrades.
Annetta Flanigan, from Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland, Philippine diplomat Angelito Nayan and Shqipe Hebibi of Kosovo were seized at gunpoint in Kabul on October 28 after helping organise the country’s landmark presidential election.
It was the first abduction of foreigners in the capital since the fall of the Taliban three years ago, and raised fears that local militants were imitating kidnappers in Iraq.
Officials and diplomats say they have been communicating with the kidnappers through intermediaries and that more than one group appears to be involved.
Two Afghan government officials said today that talks were bogged down over demands for a ransom that one put at €2.28m.
“The government has bargained with the mediators to try to bring the ransom down. The worry is whether the money is going to really bring a result or if it will end up in the wrong hands,” one official said.
Jaish-al Muslimeen, a little-known Taliban offshoot which claims to be holding the hostages, has said the 26 men it wants freed are in US custody, but the American military says it will release no one and has received no list issued by the militants.
The militants’ purported leader, Mohammed Akbar Agha, said his group was meeting today on the hostages’ fate.
“There are some of our members who have hard-line views on the issue but there are others who have moderate views,” Agha said in a phone call from an undisclosed location.
“The hard-liners say we should get rid of the hostages. The others say we have the ability to keep the hostages for two years.”
He said the meeting would likely continue tomorrow.
Agha insisted his group was not seeking a ransom, and claimed Afghan authorities had concocted that allegation to save face because of their failure to resolve the crisis.
“We will not hold more talks with the Afghan government,” he said.
One Afghan official said middlemen failed to show to restart talks yesterday, the last day of the Islamic festival Eid al-Fitr. He had no explanation for their absence.
Another official said the government shared US concerns that striking a deal with the hostage-takers could only encourage more kidnapping.
Jawed Ludin, spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, said the government was “extremely concerned” that the crisis had dragged into a third week, but was “hopeful” the hostages would be released. He declined to give details.
The kidnappers released a video of the frightened-looking hostages three days after armed men forced them from their clearly marked UN vehicle on a street in the capital.
A week ago, at least two of the hostages phoned home to say they were all right, but there has been no evidence of their condition since.
