AFGHANISTAN:Police in Afghanistan yesterday recovered the bullet-riddled body of a South Korean hostage.
The man had 10 bullet holes in his head, chest and stomach, and was discovered in the Mushaki area of Qarabagh district in Ghazni province.
A purported Taliban spokesman said the militants killed one of a group of hostages because Afghan authorities had not met demands to release Taliban militants from prison.
But eight other South Korean hostages were freed by their captors and were being moved to a safe location yesterday, Yonhap news agency reported.
The report, citing unnamed government officials, said the six women and two men were being taken to a US military base in Ghazni province.
An Afghan official involved in the negotiations earlier said a large sum of money would be paid to free eight of the hostages.
Because of the recent spike in kidnappings - including the capture of 23 South Koreans last week and an attempt to abduct a Danish citizen yesterday - police in Kabul announced foreigners were no longer allowed to leave the city without police permission.
The Danish reporter who escaped the kidnap attempt in eastern Afghanistan "was close to being caught, but managed to get away and reach a local police station", according to officials.
The reporter - who was reported to be of Afghani origin - called the Danish embassy in Kabul to inform them about the kidnapping attempt in the Kunar region.
German officials also said yesterday they could not confirm reports from Afghanistan that a journalist working for Stern news magazine had been kidnapped and released.
Stern said journalist Christoph Reuter, subject of the initial reports, had sent a text message that he had not been kidnapped, according to a magazine spokeswoman.
German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said that "regarding the missing Stern reporter Reuter, I cannot confirm that he is free again. The picture is very unclear. We cannot confirm what we are hearing from Afghanistan."
Last week, two German engineers were kidnapped in the country, one of whom who died while in custody.
Rüdiger Diedrich (43) died under unclear circumstances while in captivity.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan a noncommissioned French officer who was training Afghan soldiers died following a rocket attack on an army headquarters.
France has approximately 1,000 troops in Afghanistan.