KABUL: Local Taleban commanders threatened yesterday to kill a captured American soldier unless the US military stops operations in two districts of southeastern Afghanistan.
The Taleban claimed last week to be holding the soldier, whom the US military earlier described as possibly being in enemy hands.
Abdullah Jalali, a spokesman for Taleban commander Mawlavi Sangin, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday that the soldier was healthy.
He said the soldier would be killed unless the US stops airstrikes in Ghazni province’s Giro district and Paktika province’s Khoshamand district. Jalali did not explain why the Taleban chose those areas, noting only that Giro has been heavily bombed.
US military spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias declined to comment on the demands but did say recent operations in Giro district this month did not involve bombings.
Neither district is in Helmand province, where Marines are currently conducting the largest US military operation in Afghanistan since the Taleban were toppled from power in 2001.
Jalali said the final decision about the soldier’s fate will be made by Taleban leader Mullah Omar.
Also Thursday, the governor of Kandahar province announced that six civilians were killed and 14 were wounded in an airstrike on a village in Shawalikot district. His statement said an investigation is ongoing. The US military spokeswoman said she did not have details.
