KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan officials and Taliban spokesmen confirmed yesterday the kidnapping by Taliban of two French and three Afghan child-welfare workers - a new sign that last month's deal to free an Italian journalist has helped strengthen hostage-taking as a Taliban weapon.
Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan's far south say they are holding nearly a dozen hostages overall and are demanding the release of more of their own people from government prisons. In particular, they are threatening to kill the Italian journalist's Afghan interpreter, who was left behind in the deal for the Italian's freedom.
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In recent months, several journalists - including two Pakistanis, a Briton and their Afghan colleagues - have been detained by Taliban guerrillas but then released once guerrilla commanders found they were truly reporters rather than spies.
But the kidnapping last month of reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo took a more malevolent turn. His captor, a prominent commander named Mullah Dadullah, known for his violence, demanded the freedom of Taliban prisoners held by the government. And he put pressure on the Afghan and Italian authorities by having Mastrogiacomo's Afghan driver beheaded.
Analysts say the change in tactics may have come in part because Italy's government has been known to negotiate for the release of its citizens taken hostage - and because Prime Minister Romano Prodi has been under severe political pressure at home against the continued deployment of 1,800 Italian troops as part of the NATO force in Afghanistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he had several phone calls from Prodi asking him to win the freedom of Mastrogiacomo, a reporter for the daily La Repubblica. Karzai handed over five prominent Taliban prisoners, including Dadullah's brother. But when the Italian was freed, his interpreter, Ajmal Naqshbandi, was held back.
The exchange was "extraordinary ... and won't be repeated," Karzai said Friday. "It was a very difficult situation. The Italian government could have collapsed any time," he told a news conference. "Despite knowing what would be the consequences of this, we handed over some Taliban prisoners and [they] freed the Italian journalist."
Karzai has been criticized both for caving in to the hostage-takers and for failing to save an Afghan as he did a foreigner. The surrender of Taliban prisoners for Mastrogiacomo "could very well result in the abduction of other reporters and foreigners in Afghanistan," wrote the U.S. security analysis firm Stratfor. "In effect, it has become a neon sign declaring open season on foreigners."
In fact, the odds for foreigners kidnapped in Afghanistan already had been declining. Between 2003 and 2005, eight of 11 foreigners seized by the Taliban in Afghanistan were freed. But in the past year, five out of seven have been killed.
Amid Afghanistan's general insecurity and feuding, many Afghans have been kidnapped, either for political motives or for monetary ransom. But Naqshbandi's case has become a political cause here, and a crisis for Karzai. The painfully contrasting images of Mastrogiacomo, 52, pumping his fists skyward at his return to an Italian airport, and Naqshbandi, 23, staring uncertainly into his captors' video camera, appear nightly on Afghan television.
A Rome-based news agency, AKI, quoted Naqshbandi's brother, Munir, as saying he got a phone call from a Dadullah aide Thursday setting a Monday deadline for a deal to prevent Naqshbandi's execution.
And officials in southwestern Afghanistan told the French news agency, AFP, yesterday that a French man and woman working with Terre d'Enfance, a child-welfare agency, had been taken with their three Afghan colleagues to Helmand province, the main stronghold in Afghanistan of the Taliban.
A Taliban spokesman confirmed the kidnapping. No ransom demands have been issued.
