A video apparently showing three foreign election workers kidnapped in Afghanistan was shown on Arab television Sunday. The video was the firmest evidence yet that the three are in the hands of a Taliban splinter group which has threatened to kill them unless British troops leave Afghanistan and the United States frees Afghan prisoners. A spokesman for Jaish-al Muslimeeen, which claims it seized the hostages on Thursday on a busy Kabul street, said it would execute them in three days unless the United Nations and British troops leave Afghanistan. "They have to comply with our demands in three days, otherwise we will kill these three" Ishaq Manzoor told The Associated Press in a satellite telephone call. "Like in Iraq, the U.N. has to leave." The footage on al-Jazeera television showed the three hostages, two women and one man, sitting hunched against a wall in a room in an undisclosed location. A militant wearing a checkered scarf around his face was also shown. The three appeared well, if nervous, on the brief extract shown early Sunday afternoon. Manzoor said the kidnappers were also demanding the release of all Muslim prisoners from U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and from Bagram, the main American base north of Kabul. He claimed the group was negotiating with the Afghan government but declined to elaborate.
