Afghanistan Watch: Hostage incidents--Reuters

July 25, 2007

Hostage incidents--Reuters

With the Taliban's deadline for killing the South Korean aid workers approaching, Reuters has compiled a timeline of hostage incidents in Afghanistan since 2006. MORE

* 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 October 12 by gunmen after he left by bus from Lashkar-Gah, capital of Helmand province in the south. He is released unharmed on November 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 executed on April 8.

* April 2007: The Taliban say they have kidnapped Eric Damfreville, a Frenchman, working for Terre d'Enfance aid organization, along with their local driver and two other Afghans in Nimroz province. He is released on May 11. A French woman hostage who also worked for the 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 traveling in Wardak province, southwest of the capital, Kabul. One German was killed, apparently by his captors.

-- July 23: The Taliban say the other German is still being held along with four Afghans.

-- July 19: A group of 23 South Koreans from a church organization in Bundang, outside Seoul, are kidnapped from a bus traveling from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar. On July 24, the Taliban extend a deadline for South Korea to meet their demands by 24 hours.

-- July 25: A German journalist and his Afghan translator are reported kidnapped in the eastern province of Kunar. Meanwhile a Taliban spokesman says some of the 23 Korean hostages will probably be killed if eight named Taliban prisoners are not freed by 0930 GMT on Wednesday.