3 UN hostages released

The brother of freed Filipino hostage Angelito Nayan, Bernard Nayan (L) with daughter Anna and wife Angie (R) and the rest of the family rejoice after giving a statement on the release of Angelito Nayan at the overseas workers center in Manila yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Kosovan Shqipe Hebibi and Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan were kidnapped in Kabul on Oct. 28 after helping run a presidential election won by US-backed incumbent Hamid Karzai.

"We are very, very happy and very relieved. Staff in UN offices are in jubilation that their friends are back," said UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva.

"They appear to be good health and good spirits," he said, adding that they were expected to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said the hostages had been left at an unidentified location in Kabul at about 6 a.m. and there had been no military action to free them.

Akbar Agha, the leader of the Taliban splinter faction, the Jaish-e Muslimeen (Army of Muslims), that had claimed to be holding the hostages, said they had been released in exchange for 24 Taliban prisoners, but Jalali denied this.

"No prisoners were released, no money was paid, no demand was met of the hostage takers," Jalali told a news conference. "And to my knowledge no other parties paid money."

Jalali described the kidnappers as "criminals" but said it was possible a gang had been hired by Jaish-e Muslimeen, given that the militants had openly claimed to be holding the workers. He vowed that those responsible would be brought to justice.

The three workers were snatched from their UN vehicle from a busy Kabul street just a few hundred meters (yards) from their office, raising fears in the foreign community that local militants had begun copying tactics of insurgents in Iraq.

Jaish-e Muslimeen had threatened to kill the hostages if its demand for the release of Taliban prisoners was not met but the kidnappers let repeated deadlines pass without incident and even allowed the three hostages to phone home.

Agha, asked by the Afghan Islamic Press whether his group would carry out more kidnappings, replied: "We will use every tactic to secure the release of the Taliban jailed either by the US forces or the government."

Jalali said two military raids had been mounted Monday and some suspects detained. One person was killed and four wounded in one raid, but there was no military activity on Tuesday, he said.

US-led troops searching for the hostages blasted their way into several compounds in Kabul Monday and detained 12 people, including a doctor working for the United Nations, but it was unclear if this raid had helped rescue the hostages.