Taliban free 4 kidnapped Red Cross staff

KABUL - Taliban insurgents on Saturday freed four staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) they had kidnapped in Afghanistan three days ago, an ICRC statement said.

"The unconditional release of our four colleagues is a great relief to us and their families," Franz Rauchenstein, deputy head of the ICRC delegation in Kabul, said in a statement.

The four men, two Afghans, a Macedonian and a citizen of Myanmar, were seized by the Taliban in Wardak province, southwest of the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday.

One of the hostages said they had been well treated by their captors.

"The treatment was fine. There was no interrogation, no questioning, we lived in the same condition as the Taliban. There was food and water," the Macedonian hostage told an Afghan reporter shortly before his release.

"It was a long journey on foot in the mountains and then we spent the night in one house -- two nights -- and then this morning we came down," he said in recorded comments made available to Reuters.

"We were not afraid. We have contacts with the Taliban, we know the Taliban," he said.

ICRC MET GERMAN HOSTAGE

The ICRC team was seized as they were returning from a failed mission to facilitate the release of a German engineer kidnapped by the Taliban in July.

The Macedonian said the team had met the German hostage.

"We saw him, he could walk. I don't know his health condition," he said. Asked why the German had not also been freed, he said: "I cannot tell you. That it is confidential."

The Taliban commander holding them said he had thought the ICRC team were spies.

"When they arrived in Wardak, we received information that there were foreigners present for the purpose of spying," Taliban commander for Wardak, Hajimullah, told the reporter.

"We ordered our security forces to capture them. Then we investigated them and found they were working for the ICRC and the emirate ordered their release," he said, but warned any other foreigners risked kidnap if they entered the area, about an hour's drive from Kabul.

The Taliban have kidnapped dozens of Afghans and foreigners in recent months as part of their campaign to create an atmosphere of insecurity, and undermine the government and its Western backers.

The ICRC maintains a strict neutrality in all armed conflicts which is usually respected across the globe.

In August, the ICRC helped facilitate talks between the Taliban and South Korean officials that led to the release of 21 Korean hostages after more than a month of captivity. Two other Koreans were killed.

The ICRC deploys 60 expatriates and some 1,300 Afghan nationals in Afghanistan. Its officials visit several thousand detainees in Afghanistan each year to ensure they are being treated humanely in accordance with international law.

"At this stage we can't say that this will have any impact on our operations," said Claudia McGoldrick, ICRC spokeswoman in Geneva.