Pajhwok
03/18/2007
By Samiullah
[Printer Friendly Version]

KABUL - Behind-the-scene negotiations are underway with the Taliban for the safe release of the kidnapped journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo.

Shahabuddin Atal, spokesman for the Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah, told Pajhwok Afghan News Friday evening they had got some positive signals from the other side.

"There is some progress and some positive signals have been received," said the spokesman when pressed to comment on the course of the secret talks.

Asked about the three-day extension in the deadline, Atal said everything would get clear by 3pm tomorrow (Saturday).

Earlier, Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi told Pajhwok Afghan News they had extended the deadline till Sunday after the statement from the Italian Foreign Ministry.

However, Atal said the decision had now been changed and the deadline had been shrunk to Saturday afternoon (3pm).

The 52-year-old Italian journalist, in an audio-taped message received to Pajhwok Afghan News on Thursday, pleaded for help. "Please do something as they have only two days" are the words repeatedly spoken by the kidnapped journalist, after being asked by his abductor to say it in a loud voice.

"Tell them I'm alive. Today is 13th, and if they failed to accept the demands till 16th, it will create problems for me," says the Taliban commander in a Kandahari dialect.

Taliban are demanding the withdrawal of Italian forces from Afghanistan. They say they will kill the journalist if the Italian government did not withdraw troops from the insurgency-wracked country.

The La Repubblica reporter was kidnapped along with his two Afghan interpreters in the lawless province of Helmand on March 4.

The United Nations, Afghan government, tribal elders in Helmand province and Afghan journalists, have already asked Taliban to release Daniele Mastrogiacomo as he was a journalist and has nothing to do with the military operations of any country. Taliban had accused him of spying for the British forces.

Journalists in Helmand and Afghanistan's central capital Kabul have also demanded release of their Italian colleague.

Besides the journalist bodies, Tribal elders from the southern Helmand province, where the Italian reporter was kidnapped some 10 days back, had also asked the Taliban to release him.

Daniele Mastrogiacomo is the second Italian journalist kidnapped by Taliban in Afghanistan. In October last year, Gabriele Torsello was kidnapped while traveling in Helmand province. He was set free after three weeks of captivity.

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