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FACTBOX-Foreign hostages in Afghanistan
29 Sep 2007 14:13:26 GMT
Source: Reuters
Sept 29 (Reuters) - Four staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) kidnapped by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan three days ago were freed on Saturday, a Taliban spokesman said.

Following are details of reported kidnappings of foreigners in Afghanistan since 2006.

* March 2006 - Taliban insurgents say they killed four hostages and dumped their bodies in the Kandahar-Helmand area in southern Afghanistan. The four were abducted on March 11. An official at the Ecolog services company in Kabul said the four hostages, all from Macedonia, were employees.

* April 2006 - An Indian engineer, identified as K. Suryanarayan, is found beheaded on April 30 not far from where he was kidnapped near the main road between Qalat and Ghazni. The Taliban claim responsibility.

* October 2006 - Gabriele Torsello, a London-based photojournalist who is a Muslim, is kidnapped on Oct. 12 by gunmen after he left by bus from Lashkar-Gah, capital of Helmand province in the south. He is released unharmed on Nov. 3.

* March 2007 - The Taliban capture Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo of La Repubblica and two Afghans in Helmand province. He is handed over to the Italian embassy on March 19 but his Afghan driver is beheaded and his translator is killed on April 8.

* April 2007 - The Taliban say they have kidnapped Eric Damfreville, a Frenchman, working for Terre d'Enfance aid organisation, his local driver and two other Afghans in Nimroz province. He is released on May 11. A female French hostage who also worked for Terre d'Enfance is released in late April by the Taliban after three weeks in captivity.

* July 2007 - Two German engineers are kidnapped by the Taliban while travelling in Wardak province, southwest of the capital, Kabul. One German was killed, apparently by his captors. The Taliban later say the other German is still being held along with four Afghans. The German, who identified himself as Rudolph B, appeared in a video on Thursday.

* July 2007 - A group of 23 South Koreans from a church organisation in Bundang, outside Seoul, are kidnapped from a bus travelling from Kabul to Kandahar. On July 25, a church pastor who was leading the group was shot dead. Five days later another male South Korean hostage was shot. Two other female captives were freed as a goodwill gesture during talks.

-- On Aug. 27 the Taliban agreed to release the hostages after South Korea agreed to meet certain conditions such as halting its citizens from conducting Christian missionary activity in Afghanistan. The remaining hostages are all freed by Aug 30.

-- Sept 24 - Two Italian military intelligence officers kidnapped two days earlier were freed during a raid by NATO-led troops in which nine kidnappers and an Afghan hostage died.

-- Sept 27 - Taliban insurgents kidnap four members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), including two expatriates, in the province of Wardak.

Sept 29 -- Four staffers of the ICRC held by Taliban insurgents are freed.
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Residents stand near the rubble of a mosque damaged in Sunday night's gun-battle between Pakistan forces and militants in the outskirts of Mingora, the main town of Pakistan's Swat valley which lies close to Pakistan's lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, October 29, 2007. Pakistani troops killed up to 60 Islamist militants during fierce fighting in the Swat valley in the country's northwest, the army said on Monday, and the insurgents called a truce to recover their dead and wounded. REUTERS/Ali Imam (PAKISTAN)



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