Taliban free three S Korean hostages

The Taliban have reportedly freed three of the 19 South Korean hostages held captive in Afghanistan for almost six weeks.Following talks between negotiators and the insurgents, the women were handed over to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ghazni province.On July 19, 23 Saemmul Church members were seized from a bus in the region. Later that month, two male captives were killed by the Taliban, but two women were freed as a goodwill gesture during early negotiations.Taliban representative Qari Mohammad Bashir, who was involved in the release talks with a South Korean team, said earlier: "Today we'll release a batch of five to eight people...God willing, they'll be released by this afternoon."He added that he hoped all would be freed in the next two to three days.South Korea has agreed to Taliban demands that its missionary groups pull out of Afghanistan as well as removing its troops out of the country - a decision which had been made before the abductions.The National Council of Churches in Korea, one of the largest groups representing the country's Protestants, said in a statement it would abide by the government's pledge to end missionary work in Afghanistan."Through this incident, we will look back on the Korean churches' overseas volunteer and missionary work, and make this an opportunity to bring about more effective and safer volunteer and missionary work," it said.© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

ITN | August 29, 2007

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