taliban Division in Taliban Causes Confusing Reports
By Yoon Won-sup, Emal Pashtunyar in Kabul
Staff Reporter
KABUL _ A division among Taliban militants on how to deal with the 21 Korean hostages is responsible for confusing news reports coming out of Afghanistan.
Some militants say the female hostages should be released without condition or in exchange for the release of Taliban prisoners. Others say they should be freed for a ransom.
One of the latest examples is the wrong report on the release of the two female hostages last weekend.
The purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi told media outlets late Saturday that the two female hostages have been set free at an undisclosed location in Ghazni Province where militants kidnapped a group of 23 Christian volunteers on July 19.
However, Ahmadi said early Sunday that the Taliban leadership made a new decision not to release the two women, according to a report. ``On the way to the Red Crescent Society in Ghazni with the two women, our leadership changed their mind,'' Ahmadi told Yonhap. ``We canceled the plan to free the two female hostages.''
Ahmadi earlier said the release was made for humanitarian reasons because the two women are very sick.
Hours before the spokesman announced the release, the Governor of Ghazni Merajuddin Patan said that negotiators were near a deal, saying he was optimistic about the results of the talks.
A Taliban source told The Korea Times that the commander holding the hostages said their release would be withheld until Sunday afternoon. The source said they had received orders from their leadership regarding the release of the two female hostages as a goodwill gesture but they had not set them free yet.
The news on the release of the two sick women spread like wildfire here and all media outlets once again published the report without verifying it.
Another misleading report spoke of a military operation to set free the Korean hostages, which also gripped the city. But the news turned out to be totally false.
This time, the Taliban spokesman provided the incorrect information to the media, according to another source, who said some commanders were angry at Ahmadi for releasing news to media without talking to them.
Considering some news on the hostages is unreliable, presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon once asked the nation to stay calm over any unconfirmed reports.
Families of the hostages also decided not to confirm the identity of hostages, who had interviews with some news media, over concerns that they may indirectly cooperate with the Taliban.