Afghan kidnappers holding three foreign UN workers hostage said today the progress of negotiations for their release would decide whether they extend a deadline to execute the trio.
Mullah Sayed Mohammad Akbar Agha, leader of the Jaish-e-Muslimeen (Army of Muslims), told said tomorrow's deadline for the demands of the Taliban splinter group to be met was still in place.
Ms Annetta Flanigan, from Co Armagh, Filipino Mr Angelito Nayan, and Ms Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo were snatched from a busy street in the capital last Thursday.
Agha indicated his group was in touch with UN officials over the release of the three, who had been helping to organise Afghanistan's first presidential election on October 9th, and was also conducting talks through a "tajir" - an influential trader with wide contacts.
Agha said the UN negotiator had asked for proof of life from the hostages, and his group would provide it shortly.
The group has released a video of the hostages, flanked by a masked militant, in which a series of demands are made that are unlikely to be met.
They have called for the release of all Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay as well as the evacuation of all foreign troops and the withdrawal of UN operations.
The Afghan government has previously negotiated the release of several foreign nationals kidnapped by Taliban fugitives in return for ransom, and some security sources say a ransom could be the best hope in this case.
"Of course the danger is that you just make kidnapping for ransom a very easy way to make money," said a Western security official. "You may save three lives, but then everyone else becomes a target. If this happens, then clearly the kidnappings become a case of banditry rather than political ideology."