New efforts to free Red Cross workers in Afghanistan

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

GHAZNI, Afghanistan (AFP) — Negotiators were in touch Friday with the captors of four Red Cross workers, two of them foreigners, who were held in Afghanistan during a mission to free a German kidnapped by the Taliban.

Contact had been made with the group that seized the men on Wednesday in the province of Wardak, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Kabul, and military action had been ruled out to free the men, an Afghan official told AFP.

"The Red Cross office advised us not use any military action for the safety of the kidnapped people and the issue must be solved via mediation through tribal elders," said the governor of Sayed Abad district where they were taken.

"We are in contact with the kidnappers via tribal elders and influentials," governor...