Taliban frees two SKorean hostages

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) - A senior Afghan official said there had been no ransom paid for the release yesterday of two South Korean women held by the Taliban, and there would be none for the remaining 19 hostages.

Mirajuddin Pattan, the governor of Ghazni province where the hostages were freed, also demanded that the hardline Islamic militants unconditionally release the other hostages seized more than three weeks ago.

The Taliban has shot dead two of the group captured in Ghazni July 19.

"There was no payoff for their release," Pattan said hours after the women were freed.

"There won't be for the rest of the hostages," he told reporters.

The Taliban has demanded the government release some of its men from jail in exchange for the surviving hostages, a condition President Hamid Karzai's administration has repeatedly refused.

"We call upon the Taliban to immediately and unconditionally free the rest of the hostages," Pattan said. The holding of women was against the tenets of Islam, he said, referring to the 14 female captives.

The women were freed on the fourth day of direct closed-door talks between the Taliban and South Korean negotiators. Details of the talks have not been made public.

One Afghan official has said the South Koreans could only offer the Taliban ransom as a prisoner swap was out of the question.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the two women were freed as "a gesture of goodwill" for the talks with the South Koreans.

"The leadership of the Taliban freed these two female hostages to show our integrity in the negotiations," Ahmadi he told AFP. "In return we want the government to free our prisoners."