The kidnappers of the 22 Korean hostages in Afghanistan have told the mediation group they have accepted a demand by the Afghan government to extend the deadline on their demands until Wednesday, the governor for Ghazni province said Monday, according to dpa. "The Taliban has indirectly told a person who carries out the negotiation from our side that they accept the extension of two more days, but they (the Taliban) have not announced it officially yet," provincial governor Mehrajudding Patan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. Patan said it seemed as if the Taliban "may accept the extension as the negotiation was still ongoing." Shortly before the expiration of Monday's deadline set by the Taliban threatening to kill the 22 remaining South Korean hostages, the Afghan government asked the rebels for two more days. Earlier Patan said, "Our delegates are in talks with them to give us two more days. Whenever there is a result we will let you know." Meanwhile, the war of nerves over the South Korean hostages held by the radical Islamic Taliban group in Afghanistan continued Monday when the group extended its deadline on its demands as one of the female hostages made a plea to her government for help. The offer of the deadline extension by the Taliban was accompanied by a renewed threat to start killing the Christian hostages. Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousif Ahmadi told dpa on Monday afternoon that if the Afghan government did not give in to the Taliban's demands for eight of its members to be released from Afghan jails by 4 pm (1130 GMT), the Taliban would start killing the remaining 22 South Korean hostages. The Taliban had initially seized the 18 South Korean women and five men, all members of the Saemmul Community Church, on July 19 in the southern Ghazni province en route from Kabul to the southern province of Kandahar. In the meantime, the pastor leading the Christian group, Bae Hyung Kyu, was shot dead last week. His bullet-riddled body was found on July 25, the day of his 42nd birthday. The body of Bae, who is survived by his wife and a 9-year-old daughter, was flown back to Seoul on Monday. His brother Shin Kyu said that there would be no funeral service held for him until the other 22 hostages had safely returned home. In a further development, one of the female hostages has pleaded for help from the government in Seoul in a telephone interview published in Monday's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. "We are sorry to have caused this trouble. We want to get out of here as soon as possible," Lee Ji Young, 34, was quoted as saying. "Don't worry too much about me," she also said in a message to her parents. Lee had to consult with the kidnappers during the telephone interview that was conducted with a journalist on Sunday evening, the newspaper reported. Lee said that the group of 22 South Korean hostages had been divided up - she was with three others - and that they were frequently moved from place to place. She did not know the fate of the other hostages, she said, while saying that most of the time she had spent "eating and sleeping." "We have not been threatened in any specific way," Lee said. JoongAng Ilbo said that Lee had been in Afghanistan since 2006 to teach children how to use computers. She was working as an interpreter for the abducted church group from South Korea. Previously, government negotiators had suggested that the kidnappers were divided among themselves about whether to seek the release of Taliban prisoners or to demand ransom money. But spokesman Ahmadi denied this Monday.
