KABUL, 3 November 2004 — A militant Afghan group holding three foreign UN workers has given negotiators a list of Taleban prisoners and said it will kill the hostages unless they — and all Afghans jailed in Guantanamo Bay — are freed. The Afghan Islamic Press said the Jaish-e-Muslimeen (Army of Muslims) had handed over the names of at least 25 Taleban followers jailed in Afghanistan whose release it was demanding.

“The United Nations has asked for the list of prisoners and we have given a list of at least 25 people inside Afghanistan,” AIP quoted the group’s leader Mulla Sayed Mohammad Akbar Agha as saying. “But we can’t give a list for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. There are many Afghan prisoners there. All of them should be released,” Agha said.

The UN workers — Filipino Angelito Nayan, Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland and Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo — were snatched from a busy Kabul street on Thursday, sparking fears that Afghan militants were copying the tactics of insurgents in Iraq. The Pakistan-based AIP did not say if it had the list.

Agha earlier told Reuters that tomorrow’s noon (0730 GMT) deadline for the prisoner release remained in place for now but could be extended if negotiations progressed. He said negotiations with a “tajir” — an influential trader with wide contacts — were continuing. A video the group released showed the kidnap victims beside a masked militant, and included a series of demands. The group has previously called for the release of all Taleban and Al-Qaeda prisoners in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, the evacuation of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and the closure of UN operations in the country.

Disquiet has been growing among Afghans over the kidnappings and former President Burhanuddin Rabbani — still an influential figure — said they were un-Islamic. “How can we say these people are Muslims? How can we accept them?” he told Reuters in an interview. “They are creating a bad name for Muslim societies and Muslim people.”

He praised the hostages as people trying to help Afghanistan. “There is another clear teaching from our Prophet Mohammad that if a Jew or a Christian, people of the book, come to a Muslim country and anyone tries to harm them, then God will be against them,” he said.

Agha said the negotiator had asked for more proof the hostages were alive, and the group would provide it after asking the hostages the names of siblings and husbands. The government has previously negotiated the release of several foreign nationals kidnapped by Taleban fugitives, in return for a ransom, and some security sources say a payoff may be the best hope in this case.

“... The danger is that you just make kidnapping for ransom a very easy way to make money,” said a Western security official. “You may save three lives, but then everyone else becomes a target. If this happens, then clearly the kidnappings become a case of banditry rather than political ideology”. The kidnap victims had helped organize Afghanistan’s first presidential election, held on Oct. 9. Karzai, the undeclared winner, expects to pick a new cabinet by end-November.

Meanwhile, up to 11 people were killed in fighting between Afghan soldiers and militiamen in southern Afghanistan, local officials said yesterday. The Afghan National Army soldiers, police and local militia forces clashed Monday in Qalat, capital of troubled Zabul province some 390 kilometers south of Kabul.

“Some 11 people were martyred and four others were injured in the fighting between national army, police and militia forces,” provincial deputy police chief Col. Ghulam Jailani told AFP. Seven of the dead were ANA soldiers while the rest were militiamen working for a provincial reconstruction team run by the US-led military coalition, he said.

The Afghan Defense Ministry, however, confirmed the deaths of only four local armed men and said five soldiers had been wounded. “Four armed men dressed in civilian clothes were killed and five ANA soldiers were injured in the fighting between the ANA and the irresponsible armed group,” the ministry said in a statement. The ministry said the clash erupted after ANA troops based in Qalat fought with and arrested 20 armed men who had been searching houses and bothering local people.

In a separate incident in neighboring southern Kandahar province, one person was killed and two wounded when ANA troops opened fire on local militia forces near Kandahar city airport, police said. “One militia soldier was killed and two others were wounded in a misunderstanding between ANA and the local militia close to Kandahar airport,” Kandahar deputy police Gen. Salim Khan told AFP by telephone.