A German engineer and four Afghans taken hostage in central Afghanistan in July were freed in a deal exchanging them for five imprisoned criminals, an Afghan official said.
Local elders handed over Rudolf Blechschmidt and the four Afghans to officials from Afghanistan's intelligence service on Wednesday in Wardak Province's Jaghato District, district chief Mohammad Nahim said.
Nahim had earlier said six Taliban militants had been freed in the swap. However, he later said that no Taliban had been released, but that five imprisoned criminals had been freed. He said one of the criminals was the father of the Taliban commander who had taken the German and Afghans.
Nahim said Afghan elders had arranged the exchange. An interior ministry spokesman confirmed the release but said he did not have further details about how it was arranged.
Blechschmidt arrived at the German Embassy in Kabul on Wednesday evening, about three hours after his release. An embassy official said Blechschmidt would not make any comments to media.
Blechschmidt told Germany's Spiegel magazine upon his release that he was "doing well."
"I'm just a little tired," the magazine quoted him as saying in a short telephone interview posted on its Web site.
"We are all very relieved and overjoyed," Markus Blechschmidt, the former hostage's son, said on German regional broadcaster Antenne Bayern.
He said the family had spoken briefly to the engineer after his release.
"He had thought he would never be freed," Markus Blechschmidt said. "We are hoping to be able to give him a big hug as quickly as possible."
"The whole stress of the past three months is finally over," the son said. "We can hardly believe it."
A series of high-profile kidnappings by Taliban militants and criminal gangs have led to ransom payments and prisoner releases in Afghanistan, apparently fueling an increase in abductions in recent months.
The Italian and Afghan governments drew criticism earlier this year when five imprisoned militants were freed in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had then called the exchange a one-time deal.
Blechschmidt said in a video obtained by APTN on Monday that he was in poor health, and pleaded with the German and Afghan governments to cut a deal with the Taliban before winter.
Blechschmidt said the German embassy had refused to engage in negotiations for a time, but that negotiations had restarted recently.
The Taliban took four Red Cross employees hostage on Sept. 27 during efforts to facilitate the German's release. The four were released in good health two days later.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to take action against the EU if it moves forward with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal to make Canada the bloc’s first associate member. “If they do that, if I think it’s at all a hostile act; I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things,” Trump told reporters en route to an event in North Carolina, calling the proposal “laughable.” “If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe,” he said. Von der Leyen made the proposal
ON THE MOVE: Trump unexpectedly cut short a trip to return to the White House, while the State Department warned Americans to avoid travel to the Middle East The US on Saturday warned that hostilities between Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Houthis could “escalate rapidly” after a missile attack targeted Riyadh for the first time since the Yemen conflict resumed. US President Donald Trump on Saturday cut short a weekend at Camp David, a secluded presidential complex in rural Maryland, to return unexpectedly to the White House. The White House gave no explanation for the early return, which comes as a new threshold was crossed in the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, who control a large part of Yemen and are fighting government forces backed by a coalition led
The US military came close to boarding a Chinese vessel in the Middle East earlier this year based on a flawed intelligence report prepared with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), CNN said on Friday. US intelligence indicated the ship was carrying nuclear weapons-related components, leading US forces to prepare to intercept it, the broadcaster reported, citing four anonymous sources familiar with the incident. However, the operation was called off after officials determined that an AI chatbot used by an analyst had misidentified the material the ship was carrying. The report was “entirely false,” but “almost started a war,” CNN quoted one source
French President Emmanuel Macron today embarks on a rare and symbolic visit to a remote French territory in the North Atlantic, hosting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at a time of growing tensions with Washington. The three-day visit to Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a three-island archipelago of less than 6,000 people just 25km off Newfoundland, would be the first by a French president in more than a decade. The trip to France’s only remaining possession in North America, a vestige of the huge territories Paris once controlled in what is now Canada and the US, carries immense symbolic resonance. Macron insists that US
RSS