Apathy reigns everywhere else.

It reminds me of how the world shrugged at the South Korean Christian hostage ordeal.

Ho-hum:

A BRITISH aid worker gunned down in Kabul yesterday was murdered because she was a Christian, the Taleban claim.

Gayle Williams, 34, was shot at close range by two men on a motorbike, in a residential district of the Afghan capital popular with missionaries.

Eyewitnesses said she collapsed in a pool of blood, after the men fired six shots from a pistol, hitting her in the chest and legs.

Daolad Khan, who was working on a building site directly opposite the murder scene, said: “They raced up the street and stopped in front of the lady. They took out a gun and shot her on the spot. Then they rode off.”

Security officials said it was the first time an international aid worker had been killed inside Kabul since 2001.

The Taleban said they carried out the attack on the grounds that Ms Williams was trying to convert people to Christianity. “This woman came to Afghanistan to teach Christianity to the people of Afghanistan,” militant spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said. “Our (leaders] issued a decree to kill this woman.”

Williams was working for a British-based Christian charity called Serve Afghanistan. Staff there insisted she had never tried to convert others.

Rina van der Ende, a spokeswoman for Serve in Kabul, said: “They are here to do NGO aid work. It’s not the case that they preach, not at all.”

Mike Lyth, the London-based chairman of Serve Afghanistan, said he had lost a “close personal friend” who had devoted her life to helping others.

He said: “She was working with disabled children: blind children, deaf children and children hurt and maimed by the fighting.”

Colleagues last night paid tribute to a “selfless” woman dedicated to her work. A message on the charity’s website read: “Gayle was not a woman who thought of herself. Her time and energy were always spent on behalf of others.”

Just in:

Taliban militants released four more South Korean hostages Thursday, according to an Associated Press reporter who saw them handed over to the Red Cross, and three others are also scheduled to be freed. The two men and two women were handed over to the officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross, on a road in Janda area in central Afghanistan.

That’s in addition to the 12 released yesterday. This is not the end of the crisis, unfortunately. The South Korean government’s direct deal-cutting with the Taliban ensures that we will see more infidels kidnapped:

Under the terms of Tuesday’s deal, South Korea reaffirmed a pledge it made before the hostage crisis began to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year. Seoul also said it would prevent South Korean Christian missionaries from working in the staunchly Muslim country, something it had already promised to do.

The Taliban apparently backed down on earlier demands for a prisoner exchange. But the militant group, which killed two South Korean hostages last month, could emerge with enhanced political legitimacy for negotiating successfully with a foreign government.

“One has to say that this release under these conditions will make our difficulties in Afghanistan even bigger,” Commerce Minister Amin Farhang told Germany’s Bayerischer Rundfunk radio. “We fear that this decision could become a precedent. The Taliban will continue trying to take hostages to attain their aims in Afghanistan.”

A German engineer and four Afghan colleagues kidnapped a day before the South Koreans are still being held.

Eugene Cho, who has blogged the story vigilantly from the beginning, continues to track the latest developments.

Taliban militants in Afghanistan agreed to release 19 South Korean church volunteers held captive since July 19, a spokesman for the insurgents and the South Korean government said Tuesday.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, said South Korean and Taliban delegates at face-to-face talks Tuesday in the central town of Ghazni had “reached an agreement” to release the captives.

In Seoul, South Korean presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-sun confirmed a deal was reached.

“We welcome the agreement to release 19 South Koreans,” said Cheon Ho-sun.

No other details on the agreement were immediately available.

The price? No more South Korean Christians in Afghanistan.

Yonhap reports:

“The hostage release agreement was reached after direct talks between Korean and Taliban negotiators from 5:48 p.m. to 7:20 p.m. (Korea Standard Time). The South Korean government welcomes the agreement on the hostage release,” presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said in a press conference.

“The agreement was reached on conditions that South Korea withdraw its troops stationed in Afghanistan by the year’s end and impose a ban on its Christian nationals’ missionary activities in Afghanistan,” Cheon said.

Note:

He said the actual timing for the hostage release can’t be confirmed for now, adding it will be subject to further consultations with the Taliban captors.

AllahPundit notes that the Taliban still have five other hostages–a German and four Afghans last month–that they want to trade for jihadis.

Mujahed also reported that most of the captives were sick from weather conditions and from lack of “proper food.”

“Their health condition is not good,” the spokesman said. “The weather conditions and a lack of proper food have made conditions for them very hard. Most of them are sick.”

Talks between Taliban negotiators and a South Korean delegation had initially appeared to be making headway when two female hostages were released last Monday. However, the negotiations have since become deadlocked with the rebels continuing to demand the release of its jailed fighters in exchange for the Koreans.

According to Chosun Ilbo, the Afghan government has formed a “special committee” to “find a diplomatic solution” to the Taliban-engineered crisis “by cooperating with countries like Pakistan that have influence on the Taliban.” Reuters reports that the Afghan government would use force to free the hostages if talks between the Korean delegation and the Taliban fail. Contrary report here.

Blogger Eugene Cho continues his vigil for the hostages and writes:

I recently received an email today from a fellow minister in the United States who “confessed” that he had no idea that this was going on until he stumbled onto this blog. Let’s do our part to both pray and help bring light to this situation.

Via Eugene, here’s a video timeline of the crisis to date:

And a reminder again of the bright, smiling faces hidden by the tall shadows of global apathy and capitulation:

***

Related: AP reports that a “German hostage who has been held by the Taliban for more than a month appeared on Afghan television today, coughing and holding his chest while appealing for help. Taliban militants, meanwhile, ambushed a convoy of supplies for NATO-led troops in southern Afghanistan, killing 10 Afghan guards, an official with the convoy said.”

Two women among the 23 South Koreans kidnapped by the Taliban in mid-July were freed Monday on a rural Afghan roadside and then driven to a U.S. base, the first significant breakthrough in a hostage drama now more than three weeks old.

The two women, who broke into tears after seeing the international Red Cross officials there to take custody of them, got out of a dark gray Toyota Corolla driven by an Afghan elder and into one of two waiting Red Cross SUVs. The women said nothing to reporters alerted to the handoff location five miles southeast of Ghazni city by a Taliban spokesman.

Wearing scarves on their heads, khaki trousers and traditional Afghan knee-length shirts, the women were driven to the U.S. base in Ghazni city, where American soldiers searched them and then let them enter. Both carried bags.

The Taliban monsters are patting themselves on the back for their “gesture of good will.”

Now, they want their reward: “We are expecting the Korean people and government to force the Kabul administration and the U.S. to take a step toward releasing Taliban prisoners,” Ahmadi said by telephone from an undisclosed location.”

Appeasement begets appeasement. Will that lesson be remembered?

***

Yonhap identifies the freed hostages: “Two of 21 South Koreans held hostage in Afghanistan have been released and moved to a safe area, a spokesman for the South Korean Foreign Ministry said Monday. The released hostages are Kim Gina, 32, and Kim Kyung-ja, 37, ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong told reporters.”

***

Eugene Cho keeps track of all the latest twists, turns, and continued apathy/hostility towards South Korean Christian hostages being held by Taliban thugs in Afghanistan. The Islamo-killers changed their minds and have decided not to release two women captives after dangling a promise to do so earlier this weekend. Not much solid info. Here’s Chosun’s dispatch via VOA News.

And the international human rights outcry is…where?

Wait. What’s that sound?

Oh. Never mind.

It’s the sound of the world still not caring.

[Insert crickets chirping here.]

Here’s another video plea from one of the hostage’s families:

***

Afghan President Hamid Kazai said on Thursday the abduction of Korean women by Taliban guerrillas had no precedent in Afghan history and would bring shame on the nation.

The Taliban seized 23 Korean Christian volunteers, among them 18 women, from a bus in Ghazni province three weeks ago. The group has killed two male hostages and warned it would kill the remaining captives if Karzai did not free jailed Taliban.

Karzai, who came under harsh criticism for releasing Taliban prisoners for the freedom of an Italian journalist in March, has repeatedly said he would not resort to a prisoner swap again.

“Women from another country are being kidnapped in Afghanistan … This would bring historical shame and defamation for this country and this nation,” Karzai said.

“Women are being kidnapped in this soil today under the name of Taliban, Muslims and Afghans … In Afghanistan’s history, never anyone has kidnapped women,” he added.

Karzai made the comments in Kabul during the opening of a grand meeting between Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan on finding ways to tackle the resurgent Taliban and al Qaeda allies.

The Taliban could not be reached immediately for comment.

South Korean officials look ready to bow to the Taliban’s will:

South Korean officials may soon meet face-to-face with Taliban rebels to negotiate the terms of release for 21 South Koreans held hostage in Afghanistan, officials said Thursday.

Abdullah Jan, a purported Taliban commander, was quoted as saying in an interview with a Pakistani daily that the first face-to-face meeting with South Korean officials could take place as early as Thursday.

Sources say the venue of the meeting is likely to be a Taliban-controlled area, as the insurgent group earlier insisted.

A South Korean official refused to confirm an imminent meeting with Taliban militants, but noted the sides may meet when conditions are right.

“The goal is not to hold a meeting, but to make progress when the sides meet,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The major hurdle, besides finding what officials called a “mutually acceptable venue” for the envisioned meeting, is to narrow the gap between what the kidnappers want and what South Korea can give.

Eugene Cho sums up the situation: “Three weeks = two dead. 21 still in captivity and no progess on the face to face negotiation = lots of pain and confusion.” And via Eugene, one of a series of video pleas from a hostage’s family:

Another video here.

Still ignored. Still suffering. Still praying. Not that the world seems to care much, but there was a funeral in Seoul today for murdered South Korean Christian missionary, Shim Sung-min, the second Korean hostage killed by the Taliban militants last month. Hundreds attended the service. Twenty-one South Korean Christians remain in captivity and under threat of murder. Yonhap reports that Shim’s fellow parishioners went to an Islamic mosque to beg Muslims for help in freeing the remaining hostages:

During the hour-long service, Sung-min’s father, Shim Jin-pyo, said in tears, “My son, Sung-min! I hope your dream comes true in a bigger way there. Please pray in heaven for the safety of the remaining 21 captives together with pastor Bae.”
Shim’s family wailed as his coffin was moved to a mortuary car for transportation to Seoul National Hospital in central Seoul. The family donated the body to the hospital for medical research.

The first hostage victim was Bae Hyung-kyu, a 42-year-old pastor and the leader of the kidnapped Koreans. He was found dead from gunshot wounds in Afghanistan on July 25. But his family said they will not hold a funeral before the remaining hostages return safely home.

Before attending the funeral, 16 family members of the captives visited an Islamic mosque in Seoul to plead for the help of Muslims in winning the release of hostages.

Good luck with that.

Meanwhile, there’s a US-Afghanistan summit this weekend. Karzai will be meeting with President Bush at Camp David. The Taliban kidnappers are watching:

Taliban kidnappers holding South Korean hostages may be deliberately delaying direct talks with South Korea until after key meetings in the U.S. and with Pakistan, legislators from Seoul said Friday, quoting the Afghan envoy here.

Amb. Said Jawad said the kidnappers may wait and see the results of the U.S.-Afghanistan summit this weekend and the upcoming Islamic Council meeting before sitting down with South Korean officials, according to the legislators. More than 700 tribal leaders from Afghanistan and Pakistan will attend the council meeting.

Overseas, some people are showing more interest in the plight of the South Korean Christians. Thai civil organizations paid condolences at the South Korean embassy in Bankok and condemned the Taliban.

And the Korean website donga.com castigated leftist groups in South Korean for their anti-American opportunism:

Extreme leftists are now systematically spreading their view that the U.S. is responsible for the Korean hostage situation in Afghanistan. As the situation is dragging on without breakthrough, this view is being raised even among the families of the captives. However, this is the very time that we need to make a reasonable judgment on the situation.

Viewing the U.S. as responsible for the incident means demanding the U.S. to step in and play a role in releasing imprisoned Taliban terrorists. This is no different than saying, it doesn’t matter if it fuels another kidnapping of someone else’s daughter or son by terrorists, as long as my child can be released. If the Taliban’s demands are met, no matter what they ask for, all terrorists around the world will plot yet another kidnap with the aim of having their imprisoned members released. There are already 15,000 overseas evangelical activists. So putting the responsibility on the U.S. is equal to driving those activists into new danger. It is not helpful at all…

***

Eugene Cho continues to pray for the hostages on Day 16 of the crisis. He reprints a letter from the family of hostage Kim Yung-Yeong, one of the 18 women being held hostage and facing murder by the Taliban.

Some politicians and civic groups in Korea are starting to hold the U.S. responsible for the two-week-old hostage crisis in Afghanistan with remarks that seem designed to stir up simmering anti-American sentiment here.

At a meeting of the Uri Party on Wednesday, Rep. Park Chan-suk said, “The root cause of the hostage crisis lies in our dispatch of troops to Afghanistan. While the Koreans are suffering, the U.S. stands firm on the principles. It’s irresponsible and it’s a betrayal of one of its allies.” Uri Chairman Chung Se-kyun said, “The U.S. should not remain a mere bystander.”

Well, it appears we aren’t going to do anything. Moonbats abroad will be pleased:

In talks in Manila earlier in the day, South Korea and the United States ruled out the possibility of military operations to secure the release of the South Koreans, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said.

South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte discussed the hostages on the sidelines of the security conference, he said.

“The two sides ruled out the possibility of military operations and placed a top priority on safely resolving the issue by mobilizing all means,” the official quoted Song as saying after the meeting. He asked not to be named, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

“The United States is not preparing military operations,” he quoted Song as saying.

The latest from Yonhap:

The foreign ministers of 26 countries participating in a major regional security forum here on Thursday strongly condemned the Taliban for killing two South Korean hostages in Afghanistan and called for the immediate release of 21 others still in captivity.

“The foreign ministers of the participating countries of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) express our solidarity with the people and government of the Republic of Korea and condemn the hostage taking of their nationals in Afghanistan,” the ministers said in a joint statement, referring to South Korea by its official name.

They also deplored “in the strongest terms” the brutal murder of two hostages — Bae Hyung-kyu, the 42-year-old leader of the group that was seized on July 19, and 29-year-old former IT worker Shim Sung-min.

“We express the hope that the hostages and their families will find the strength to face this ordeal, while at the same time expressing the hope that they will soon be reunited,” the statement said.

“Expressing hope” and “concern” (a la the United Nations) ain’t cutting it.

Stand by for more.

Update 1:30pm Eastern. Taliban announces what it’s calling its final deadline…

Taliban insurgents suggested 4:30 p.m. on August 1 as a new deadline for negotiations after they killed another Korean hostage, Shim Seong-min (29), on July 31. The Taliban said they would kill the 21 hostages one by one if the negotiations fail to meet their expectations this time.

Taliban spokesman Yousuf warned on July 31 through the foreign press, including the AP and AFP, that the last deadline for the 21 left hostages would be this afternoon (Korean time: 4:30 p.m. August 1).

Update 11:00am Eastern. More conflicting reports via Christian Today (hat tip – Dan Riehl)…

Confusion arose as contrasting reports emerged from Afghanistan in the mission to free Korean Christian hostages being held by Taliban militants.

The BBC has reported receiving information about fighting breaking out in the area where the team of Korean Christian hostages are being held, saying the development suggests a dangerous operation had begun to free them.

The Telegraph has also reported that a joint US and Afghan army operation had allegedly been launched in Afghanistan to free 21 South Korean hostages held captive by Taliban insurgents.

Local officials in the area reported to the BBC that fighting had broken out between the Afghan army and Taliban forces in Ghazni province south-west of Kabul, the country’s capital.

In addition, earlier on Wednesday the Afghan military had used helicopters to drop leaflets across the area telling local residents to flee, prompting rumours a strike was imminent as another Taliban deadline passed.

However, the Afghan interior ministry insisted that no such operation was underway and spokesmen for the US army and the South Korean Embassy denied any knowledge of an assault on the hostage takers.

Update 10:15am Eastern. Reuters withdraws the hostage rescue attempt story. What the…?

Please be advised that the Kabul datelined story reporting that an operation to rescue 21 Korean hostages held by the Taliban had begun is wrong. The official cited in the story did not make the comment reported. There will be no substitute story.

“The official cited in the story did not make the comment reported.” Say what?

Update 10:00am Eastern: Here are photos of the remaining S. Korean Christian hostages. They are our brothers and sisters…

Update 9:35am Eastern. There’s confusion about whether this rescue attempt is real or not. Yonhap is running this quote: “We have not sanctioned such a rescue operation. We have not been informed of such an action either,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee Youn-soo said.

ABC News:

A military operation to rescue the remaining 21 Korean hostages held by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan began on Wednesday, hours after a Taliban deadline expired, a provincial official said.

“The operation has started,” said Khowja Seddiqi, the district chief of Ghazni’s Qarabagh district, where the Taliban kidnapped 23 Korean Christian volunteers nearly two weeks ago.

He did not give more details or say which forces were involved. Any attempt to rescue the hostages is fraught with risk, as the kidnappers have split the 18 women and three men into small groups and are holding them in different locations across the mainly flat terrain.

The Taliban could not be immediately be contacted, but spokesmen for the radical Islamist movement have repeatedly said any use of force would jeopardise the lives of the hostages.

Earlier the army had dropped leaflets warning civilians of an assault.

Eugene Cho has covered the crisis extensively and expresses the frustration I share about the lack of American concern over the past two weeks:

Seriously, does anyone care? Is anyone else just tired of the Michael Vick story? Why isn’t the media sharing more about the situation? Anderson Cooper, where are you? I really do not understand how this cannot be prominent NEWS here in the United States. I understand that these hostages are not “Americans.” They are Koreans and Asians and thus, considered by some as “others” here. But, can’t people understand that the Taliban took these hostages as an attack and a statement – not to Christians or to Koreans, but to all those that oppose them. This was and is a statement to the US as well, right? Isn’t that the reason why the first interview was given to CBS News, right? Where is the outrage? It pisses me off immensely that another person has been killed and it is barely mentioned. My cynical prediction: this won’t be front news until the Afghan president, Harmid Karzai, visits President Bush at Camp David on August 5 and 6 – that is, if the hostages are still alive. Does anyone care?

James Na yesterday:

It is a self-loathing pathos of a post-modern capitalist democracy where victimhood trumps victory on the moral plane — why fight like dog-faces and win when suffering from aggressions of others is a far nobler endeavor?

Are we now reaching the apex of the reaction against the kind of virulent nationalism and imperalism of the 19th Century and the early 20th Century that resulted in the bloodbath of the two world wars?

Can people arouse themselves from a cozy, air conditioned Starbucks to muster rage and anger against those who harm their tribe or is such “primitive” feeling passé along with rabbit hunting on one’s backyard?

I have long resisted a cyclical view of history, but when I think of where Western post-modern society is headed (the prizing of clever words and legal arguments and the disappareance of mensch-ness), I cannot but help visualize how helpless the silk-clad Mandarins must have looked as illiterate nomadic warriors broke into their cities or how pathetic the Byzantine magnates must have appeared as they fled their estates from the ravages of Varangians and Arabs.

Perhaps they lost their civilizations despite all the advantages of superior technology, learning, organization, and wealth, because, in the end, they simply lost their desire for vengeance.

Joshua Stanton at One Free Korea: “If you’re practiced at prayer, this would be a good time.” Joshua presaged the rescue bid yesterday in “Ransom is not a countermeasure:” “Talk of yielding to their demands will only get more people kidnapped and killed.”

My column this week spotlights the martyrs no one cares about:

The blood of innocent Christian missionaries spills on Afghan sands. The world watches and yawns. The United Nations offers nothing more than a formal expression of “concern.” Where is the global uproar over the human rights abuses unfolding before our eyes?

For two weeks, a group of South Korean Christians has been held hostage by Taliban thugs in Afghanistan. This is the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001. What was their offense? Were they smuggling arms into the country? No. Inciting violence? No. They were peaceful believers in Christ on short-term medical and humanitarian missions. Seventeen of the 23 hostages are females. Most of them are nurses who provide social services and relief.

Over the past few days, the bloodthirsty jihadists have demanded that South Korea immediately withdraw troops from the Middle East, pay ransom and trade the civilian missionaries for imprisoned Taliban fighters. The Taliban leaders have made good on threats to kill the kidnapped Christians while Afghan officials plead fecklessly that their monstrous behavior is “un-Islamic.”

Two men, 29-year-old Shim Sung-min and 42-year-old Pastor Bae Hyeong-gyu, have already been shot to death and dumped in the name of Allah. Bae was a married father with a 9-year-old daughter. According to Korean media, he was from a devout Christian family from the island province of Jeju. He helped found the Saemmul Church south of Seoul, which sent the volunteers to Afghanistan.

Across Asia, media coverage is 24/7. Strangers have held nightly prayer vigils. But the human rights crowd in America has been largely AWOL. And so has most of our mainstream media. Among some of the secular elite, no doubt, is a blame-the-victim apathy: The missionaries deserved what they got. What were they thinking bringing their message of faith to a war zone? Didn’t they know they were sitting ducks for Muslim head-choppers whose idea of evangelism is “convert or die”?

I noted the media shoulder-shrugging about jihadist targeting of Christian missionaries five years ago during the kidnapping and murder of American Christian missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham in the Philippines. The silence is rooted in viewing committed Christians as alien others. At best, there is a collective callousness. At worst, there is outright contempt — from Ted Turner’s reference to Catholics as “Jesus freaks” to CBS producer Roxanne Russell’s casual insult of former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer as “the little nut from the Christian group” to the mockery of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith.

Curiously, those who argue that we need to “understand” Islamic terrorists demonstrate little effort to “understand” the Christian evangelical missionaries who risk their lives to spread the gospel — not by sword, but through acts of compassion, healing and education. An estimated 16,000 Korean mission workers risk their lives across the globe — from Africa to the Middle East, China and North Korea.

These are true practitioners of a religion of peace, not the hate-mongers with bombs and AK-47s strapped to their chests who slay instead of pray their way to martyrdom.

***

Ken Shepherd at Newsbusters has a good reminder of another prominent case of MSM bias against Christian missionairies.

The Taliban set the government a new deadline of noon tomorrow (5.30pm Wednesday AEST) to meet its demands in order to save 21 South Koreans, a day after a second hostage was killed.

The hardline Islamic militia wants the government to free at least eight Taliban prisoners in Afghan jails, a demand negotiators have rejected.

“If our demands are not met by then, we will start killing the rest of the South Koreans,” Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said.

The bloodied corpse of the second hostage to be killed since 23 were kidnapped nearly two weeks ago was found overnight in the southern province of Ghazni, about 140km south of Kabul.

The body was dumped in a field just off a main road, with his hands tied and bullet wounds to the head.

South Korea’s foreign ministry identified the victim as Shim Sung-Min, 29, as the country reacted with outrage.

At least there’s outrage somewhere. The U.N. is useless as usual. All eyes are on, who else, the U.S.:

The Afghan government, which was criticized for releasing five Taliban prisoners in exchange for the freedom of an Italian journalist earlier this year, has rejected the hostages-for-prisoners deal for the South Koreans.

Analysts in Seoul said the United States holds the key to resolving the hostage crisis as it has strong influence on the Kabul government led by President Hamid Karzai which replaced the Taliban regime in late 2001 on the back of U.S.-led allies.

“The Afghan government is under U.S. influence, so South Korea is urged to persuade the United States to exert its influence on Kabul,” said Chang Byong-ok, a Middle East expert at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.

Families of the hostages, shocked by the killing of the second captive, held a news conference, calling on the United States to play a role in securing the freedom of the remaining hostages.

Civic activists and politicians gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul to urge Washington to assume a more active role in the hostage crisis, saying South Korea has dispatched troops to Afghanistan to help U.S. campaigns in the war-torn country.

***

Just in:

Police in central Afghanistan at daybreak Tuesday discovered the body of a second South Korean hostage slain by the Taliban, officials said…

…The victim’s body was found in the village of Arizo Kalley in Andar District, some 6 miles west of Ghazni city, said Abdul Rahim Deciwal, the chief administrator in the area.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said senior Taliban leaders decided to kill the male captive because the government had not met Taliban demands to trade prisoners for the Christian volunteers, who were in their 12th day of captivity Monday.

“The Kabul and Korean governments are lying and cheating. They did not meet their promise of releasing Taliban prisoners,” Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said by phone from an undisclosed location. “The Taliban warns the government if the Afghan government won’t release Taliban prisoners then at any time the Taliban could kill another Korean hostage.”

Al-Jazeera showed shaky footage of what it said were several South Korean hostages. It did not say how it obtained the video, whose authenticity could not immediately be verified.

Some seven female hostages, heads veiled in accordance with the Islamic law enforced by the Taliban, were seen crouching in the dark, eyes closed or staring at the ground, expressionless.

The hostages did not speak as they were filmed by the hand-held camera.

Does anybody care yet?

Update 2:45pm Eastern. Yonhap reports, “The Taliban, claiming Monday to have executed another male South Korean hostage, threatened it will continue to kill more of them and more frequently. Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the militant group, told Yonhap in indirect contact that the Taliban will start to kill female hostages after the men, should negotiations fail.”

Here is a photo of Shim Sung-min, the second hostage reportedly killed:

***

Update: 1:54pm Eastern. The United Nations “expresses concern.” Oh, the Taliban is trembling now.

Update 1:30pm Eastern: Via Jawa Report, a second male hostage has reportedly been murdered. Rusty asks: “Where is the outrage?!?!!!!”

The victim’s name, the Taliban claims, is Sung Sin. The bloodthirsty jihadists say they shot him with an AK-47.

Yonhap reports that the Korean government is trying to confirm the murder. More details:

South Korean officials said they were trying to confirm reports that the Taliban has executed another male hostage. The South Korean embassy in Afghanistan declined to comment.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the militant group, told AFP and Reuters that a man named “Sung Sin” was killed at 8:30 p.m. (local time) with AK-47 gunshots because the Afghan government did not heed the deadline set for exchanging the hostages with Taliban prisoners. He said the body was abandoned at Qarabagh in the Ghazni province.

The given name of the victim is most similar to Shim Sung-min, 29, who is among the kidnapped. If confirmed true, it will be the second killing of the hostages. Bae Hyung-kyu, a pastor, was killed last Wednesday, his bullet-riddled corpse later recovered.

Sifting through Korean media outlets for more info, I came across this moving story at donga.com about the hostages’ families:

Lee Chae-bok, mother of Je Chang-hee, one of South Koreans held hostage by a Taliban group since July 20, wrote a letter to her only son yesterday at the office of hostage’s family members, located in Bungdang-gu, Seong-nam, Gyeonggi, saying, “We don’t know how such a terrible thing happened to us. You haven’t done anything that harms others. Your smiling face comes to mind so often, and it is really breaking my heart.”

The letter starting with “Lovely Chang-hee,” is filled with the mother’s strong love to her youngest child and only son, who received the strongest love from family members.

Lee also wrote that, “You went there to share love that you get from here, and I hope you endure the difficulties there by remembering the love of family here.”

Lee ended the letter with words, “My lovely son! I really want to see your smiling face. I will pray for your safe return.”

***
Yet another deadline extended–and now expired. Mullah Omar is now involved:

The Taliban extended its deadline to 1130 GMT (7:30 a.m. EDT) for 22 South Korean hostages they are threatening to kill after an appeal by Afghan negotiators, a Taliban spokesman said, adding all of the remaining captives were alive.

“Because of the team’s requests … the Taliban have extended the deadline to 16:00 local time,” Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed location.

The Taliban had earlier set a 0730 GMT “final deadline,” after which they said they would kill the 22 Koreans — mostly women — unless the Afghan government freed jailed rebels.

Monday’s first deadline was issued by the Taliban leadership council, led by elusive Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar, giving the threat to kill the hostages more weight than several other deadlines that have passed without incident.

Yonhap reports that negotiations have failed and the hostages will be killed.

In case you missed it over the weekend, Hamid Karzai tried to appeal to the Taliban head-choppers by pleading that kidnapping and killing innocent civilian women is “un-Islamic:”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the kidnapping of 23 South Koreans by Taliban militants “shameful” on Sunday, noting that abducting women in particular was un-Islamic. A purported Taliban spokesman set a new deadline for the hostages’ lives.

In his first comments since the July 19 kidnapping, Karzai also assured a South Korean presidential envoy that the government will “spare no effort” to secure the hostages’ release.

“This (kidnapping) will have a shameful effect on the dignity of the Afghan people,” Karzai said, according to a statement after his talks with South Korean presidential envoy Baek Jong-chun.

“(The president) explained that hostage-taking and abuse of foreign guests, especially women, is against Islam and the Afghan culture and the perpetration of this heinous act on our soil is in total contempt of our Islamic and Afghan values,” Karzai’s office said.

Like that has ever stopped the jihadists before.

The latest:

Two lawmakers—one of them a former Taliban member—and several influential elders have joined negotiations with the hardline militia to step up pressure for the release of 22 South Korean hostages, an official said Saturday.

A South Korean presidential envoy, Baek Jong-chun, was scheduled to hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday, an official from the South Korean Embassy in Kabul said. She spoke on condition of anonymity because of embassy policy.

The Taliban has demanded the release of insurgent prisoners in exchange for the South Koreans, who were captured on July 19. One of the original 23 captives was shot to death on Wednesday.

A former Taliban commander—Abdul Salaam Rocketi, now a member of parliament—has joined the talks, said Shirin Mangal, spokesman of the Ghazni provincial governor. A second lawmaker and several respected leaders from around Qarabagh, the area in Ghazni province where the hostages were taken, have also joined, he said.

“Today we are hopeful to get a good result because more and more elders have gathered from Ghazni,” said Qarabagh police chief Khwaja Mohammad. “I hope the Taliban will listen to these negotiations now because they are neutral people—elders from around Qarabagh district.”

Yonhap:

A special South Korean presidential envoy met with Afghan officials in Kabul on Saturday on a mission to secure the release of 22 South Koreans seized by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan 10 days ago, South Korean officials in Seoul said.

Baek Jong-chun, national security adviser to President Roh Moo-hyun, arrived in the Afghan capital on Friday as negotiations to free the hostages dragged on. South Korean officials said the envoy was seeking a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

“Though no schedule has been set, we expect Baek to meet the Afghan president today,” an official in Seoul said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

South Korean government sources say Baek is expected to ask the Afghan president to be flexible on the demands by the kidnappers and to convey Roh’s request to make the release of the hostages a top priority.

“Sending a presidential special envoy is the best possible choice the president can make at this point,” South Korean presidential spokesman Chun Ho-seon told reporters on Friday.

Meanwhile, South Korea mourns the slain pastor:

South Korea is mourning the death of Bae Hyung-kyu, a devout Christian pastor who led the group of 22 church volunteers currently being held hostage by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

Family members held a memorial service in Jeju, south of the South Korean capital Seoul, days after Bae’s body was found on Wednesday with 10 bullet holes in the head, chest and stomach. Bae turned 42 that day and is survived by a wife and 9-year-old daughter.

Kim Hee-yeon, widow of the slain South Korean pastor, said at a news conference on Friday that she explained to her daughter that Dad received a huge gift from God on his birthday and returned to heaven.

A pastor for about six years, Bae was one of the founders of the 5,000-membered Saemmul Church in Bundang, just south of Seoul, and was the oldest of the group sent by the church to Afghanistan. He led services for younger members of the congregation, the vast majority of whom are under 40.

“Our pastor who was killed was a very good Christian and a very peaceful person,” said Park Eun-jo, senior pastor at Saemmul Church.

Another deadline has passed. The fate of the 22 remaining South Korean Christian hostages kidnapped by Taliban thugs in Afghanistan remains unclear:

The fate of the remaining 22 South Korean hostages held by the Taliban in Afghanistan was not known after the expiry of a Friday noon (3:30 a.m. EDT) deadline by the group. Officials in Ghazni, where the Christian hostages are believed to be held, refused to speak to the media…The Taliban have already killed the leader of the 23 volunteers they snatched from a bus on the main highway south of the capital Kabul last week, but several previous deadlines have passed without them carrying out their threats.

The Taliban spokesman said Afghan authorities had asked for more time after the insurgents presented the government with a list of eight prisoners it wanted released. “The administration of Kabul has asked us to give them till 12 noon today,” spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an unknown location.

“We are waiting for them. We have given them a list of eight prisoners and if they are not released we won’t have any other option than to start killing the hostages.”

Chosun reports on the broadcast of one hostage’s voice and plea:

Eight days after the abduction of 23 Koreans in Afghanistan, the voice of one of the young women in the group was heard for the first time on Thursday. “We are in a very difficult time. Please help us,” said a woman who introduced herself as Im Hyun-joo (32), a former nurse from Seoul, in a phone interview with U.S. broadcaster CBS.

Im speaks Dari, an Afghan dialect of Farsi. She spoke Korean and Dari in the interview. “All of us are sick and in very bad condition. We are all pleading for you to help us get out of here as soon as possible. Really, we beg you.” She said she was with 17 other women while the men were being held separately.

The network arranged the interview with a Taliban commander.

Yonhap reports that the body of the slain pastor is expected to arrive in South Korea via a U.S. military base in Bagram.

The bullet-riddled body of a South Korean hostage was found by police Wednesday in central Afghanistan after a purported Taliban spokesman said the militants had killed one of the captives.

The male victim had 10 bullet holes in his head, chest and stomach, and was discovered in the Mushaki area of Qarabagh district in Ghazni province, said police officer Abdul Rahman.

The Taliban spokesman said earlier that the hostage was was killed because Afghan authorities hadn’t met their demands to release other militants from prison.

Chosun identifies the victim
as a male pastor:

Taliban militants who are holding 23 Korean hostages in Afghanistan killed one male hostage at 4 p.m. on Wednesday (8:30 p.m. KST), a purported spokesman for the group said. The Afghan government confirmed a hostage had been killed, while the Afghan Islamic Press quoted the spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, as saying the name of the victim was “Hon Qud son of Hochim.” The victim is believed to be a 42-year-old pastor named Bae Hyung-kyu. “Since Kabul’s administration did not listen to our demand and did not free our prisoners, the Taliban shot dead a male Korean hostage,” he told Reuters.

The Taliban, who had set 6:30 p.m. Wednesday as their negotiating deadline, threatened to kill the hostages after a new deadline on Thursday, 1 a.m. “If the administration of Kabul is not ready to release our hostages, then by 1 a.m. the rest of the hostages will be killed,” Ahmadi said. “That time is the last deadline.”

Korean news station KBS says the Taliban spokesman is denying that other hostages were freed:

A purported Taliban spokesman says the Taliban militants killed a South Korean hostage and dumped his body in the Musheky area of the Qarabagh district in Ghazni province.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said the Taliban shot and killed a male South Korean hostage because the Afghan government had been refusing their demands. He warned that more hostages will be killed if their demands are not met.

Reports in Seoul said the killed hostage is believed to be 42-year-old pastor Bae Hyung-kyu who led the South Korean group to Afghanistan on a volunteer work mission.

Ahmadi also denied reports that eight hostages had been released, calling it an Afghan government ploy to get an upper hand in hostage negotiations.

The Muslim rebel group has set 5:30 a.m. Korean standard time Thursday, as the final deadline for negotiations.

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Earlier today.