South Koreans Kidnapped in Afghanistan

Afghan policemen stand guard near the site of a suicide attack in Fayzabad, the capital of Badakshan province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, July 19, 2007. A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a police station in northern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing one civilian and wounding 25 other people, as roadside bomb killed two policemen in the south, officials said. (AP Photo) (Str - AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taliban militants threatened Friday to kill a group of abducted South Korean Christians, including 15 women, within 24 hours unless the Asian nation withdraws its 200 troops from Afghanistan. South Korea said Saturday it plans to withdraw its forces by the end of this year as scheduled.

Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told reporters in Seoul that 23 South Koreans were kidnapped and indicated they are safe. A purported Taliban spokesman said Friday that the group was holding 18 Koreans.

In the largest abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, several dozen fighters kidnapped the South Koreans at gunpoint from a bus in Ghazni province on Thursday, said Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief.

"They have got until tomorrow (Saturday) at noon to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, or otherwise we will kill the 18 Koreans," Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, told The Associated Press on a satellite telephone from an undisclosed location. "Right now, they are safe and sound."

On Saturday, Ahmadi reiterated that the hostages would be killed if the demands weren't met.

South Korea has about 200 troops serving with an 8,000-strong U.S.-led force, which is separate from the 40,000-member NATO-led force.

"The government is in preparations to implement its plan" to pull its troops out of Afghanistan by the end of this year as previously planned," Song said. South Korea's government has not received any official demand from the militants, he added.

South Korea plans to send officials to Afghanistan later Saturday for consultations with their Afghan counterparts to try to secure the release of the South Koreans.

Afghanistan has also set up a special task force and pledged that it will do everything to win the South Koreans' freedom, Song said of his telephone conversation with his Afghan counterpart.

It was unclear what the kidnapped Koreans were doing in Afghanistan.

A year ago, hundreds of South Korean Christians were ordered to leave Afghanistan amid rumors they were proselytizing in the deeply conservative Islamic nation. A member of that group promised they would return to the country in smaller groups, but denied charges of spreading Christianity.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that most of the hostages were members of the Saemmul Community Church in Bundang, just south of the South Korean capital, Seoul.