The Afghan Foreign Ministry said Saturday that one German hostage purportedly held by the Taliban was still alive, but a second hostage had died - while in Berlin the German Foreign Minister said the death had to be assumed, DPA reported. Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters: "We must assume ... that one of the two kidnapped hostages has died in captivity. There is no evidence he was murdered. Everything points to him having died of the ordeal that his kidnappers subjected him to." The two men, engineers, had been abducted on Wednesday. In a day of fast-changing developments, a Kabul foreign ministry spokesman said Afghan authorities were working to secure the safe return of the hostage who was still alive. A Taliban spokesman had earlier claimed both had been killed following their kidnap, with the Taliban demanding that Germany withdraw its 3,000 troops among the NATO forces in Afghanistan.
