Afghan Kidnappers Make Their Demands

KABUL, Afghanistan —  Taliban-linked militants have threatened to kill three foreign U.N. workers kidnapped in Kabul unless British troops withdraw from Afghanistan and Afghan prisoners are freed from U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Armed men kidnapped the three -- Annetta Flanigan of Northern Ireland, Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan and Shqipe Hebibi of Kosovo -- Thursday in Kabul.

A spokesman for the Taliban splinter group Jaish al Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, said Saturday that video of the hostages, all of whom were working on Afghanistan’s first presidential vote, would be sent to an Arabic television channel “in two or three days.”

“If these countries don’t agree to our demands, we will do the same thing as the mujahedin are doing in Iraq,” a man who identified himself as Ishaq Manzoor said by satellite telephone.

He said he was speaking from near the Afghan-Pakistani border.

A Western official in Kabul said British officials and relatives had identified one of several 16-digit ID numbers supplied by the group as matching Flanigan’s credit card.

NATO and U.S. troops and Afghan security forces have mounted extra patrols and roadblocks in and around Kabul since the election workers were forced from their clearly marked U.N. car into a black sport utility vehicle on a busy street.

Police detained seven suspects for questioning Friday, but said they had found no links to the abductions.