Afghans claim killing Koreans’ hostage-taker

GHAZNI (Afghanistan)—Security forces killed a Taliban commander involved in the kidnapping of 23 South Koreans in an operation that left more than a dozen other rebels dead, officials said Tuesday.
The insurgents were killed in an Afghan and US-led coalition operation that started late Monday in the central province of Ghazni, where the aid workers were snatched July 19, and lasted several hours, officials said.
Among the dead was Mullah Mateen, a key player in the abduction of the group, two of whom were killed before the remainder were freed — the final batch of 19 of them late last week. “We killed 16 enemy fighters and among them was Mullah Mateen, the Taliban commander who along with Mullah Abdullah Jan was a key person behind the kidnapping of the South Koreans,” Ghazni police chief Alishah Ahmadzai said.
“We are sure that Mullah Mateen is dead and I’m sure and everyone knows that he was behind the kidnapping of the South Koreans,” he told reporters. The operation was in the Qarabagh district, where the Christians were captured while travelling by bus. The area is about 180 kilometres (120 miles) south of Kabul.
The interior ministry in the capital confirmed that Mateen was dead and had been involved in the abductions. He was a “key person behind the kidnapping of the Koreans,” ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told reporters. The US-led coalition, which is supporting the Afghan security forces, said merely that “several” insurgents were killed in the hours-long battle in Ghazni.
“The forces suspected Taliban militants were hiding in an area of Qarabagh district,” it said in a statement. They had gone there and were attacked. The return fire resulted “in the death of several militants who were armed and wearing ammunition vests.” The Koreans, from a Christian church, were kidnapped by men posing as police. They were split into small groups and held in different locations.
Two men were killed in July after the Afghan government refused to release Taliban prisoners. Two women were freed mid-August after the rebels began direct talks with the South Korean government which resulted in a deal that saw the remainder released last week. Both sides said the deal included Seoul’s agreement to withdraw its 210 non-combat troops in Afghanistan by year-end, as previously scheduled, and to stop trips by its missionaries to Afghanistan.
They have denied foreign media reports that a ransom was paid to the Taliban. The last 19 returned to Seoul Sunday amid criticism about what was seen as a reckless trip to a war-torn devoutly Islamic nation. A Taliban spokesman told Tuesday abductions had proven to be an “effective tactic” that the rebels planned to use again.
“Through the kidnapping of the Koreans we gained worldwide media coverage,” Yousuf Ahmadi told. “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.”
The Taliban were in government until 2001 and are now waging an insurgency against the new Western-backed administration. The violence has reach a new high this year, with regular Taliban attacks such as an apparent suicide bombing in the northern city of Kunduz on Tuesday that killed two Afghan policemen.
The US-led coalition announced meanwhile that more than a dozen insurgents were killed in new clashes Monday in the southern province of Kandahar.
A senior Taliban commander involved in the abduction of 23 South Korean missionaries was among dozens of insurgents killed in clashes in southern Afghanistan overnight, police said on Tuesday.
Ali Shah Ahmadzai, police chief of Ghazni province, said Taliban commander Mullah Mateen was among 22 insurgents killed in a clash in the province’s Qarabagh district.
“He was involved in the kidnapping. We have reconnaissance colleagues on the ground,” Ahmadzai told Reuters by telephone from Ghazni.
However the U.S. military said it was not yet clear whether any hostage-takers were among “several” insurgents killed in Qarabagh.

—Agencies