Agence France-Presse,
Afghanistan promised Tuesday to do its utmost to free two French aid workers seized a week ago by the Taliban as Australia pledged to nearly double its military force in the insurgency-hit country.
The latest developments came as 10 people were killed in fresh violence linked to the resurgent Islamic movement, four of them militants who died when US-led warplanes bombed their hideout, officials said.
The Taliban are also behind a wave of kidnappings which analysts say are meant to capitalise on a deal made by the government last month to swap an Italian reporter abducted by the rebels for five Taliban.
When asked about two French nationals missing since April 3, a spokesman for US-backed President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that “the security institutions are doing their utmost… for their safe release.”
The Taliban say they have been holding the pair from the aid organisation Terre d'Enfance (A World For Our Children) along with three Afghan colleagues since abducting them in the southwestern province of Nimroz.
Karzai, however, said last week no more hostage deals would be made after a controversial trade involving five Taliban prisoners resulted in the release of Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a reporter for the Italian daily La Repubblica.
Afghan journalist Ajmal Naqshbandi, who was seized along with the Italian, was beheaded by the militants on Sunday. The rebels have also threatened to kill one of a five-member Afghan medical team seized separately on March 27.
An Italian television channel on Tuesday aired footage of the beheading of Mastrogiacomo's driver Sayed Agha.
The RAI-1 channel beamed images of Mastrogiacomo, Agha and Naqshbandi, kneeling blindfolded before some gun-wielding militants.
It then showed Agha being beheaded following which a shaken Mastrogiacomo made an impassioned appeal to Italian authorities to “do something,” while underlining that the situation was “very difficult.”
The abductions also underline the challenges facing a special Australian task force, spearheaded by 300 elite soldiers, that Prime Minister John Howard said would be deployed shortly to counter an expected Taliban summer offensive.
Howard told reporters in Sydney that his countrymen should be prepared for casualties.
Australia already has some 550 soldiers in Afghanistan. Its total military commitment would reach about 950 troops by the middle of this year, and 1,000 next year, he said.
The new elite troops, including Special Air Services soldiers and commandos, would be sent to Uruzgan province in south-central Afghanistan.
In Helmand province which borders Uruzgan, Taliban rebels attacked troops from the US-led coalition and the Afghan army fired rocket-propelled grenades in the Sangin district late Monday, a coalition statement said. Four Taliban fighters died.
The Taliban ambushed an Afghan army convoy with rockets Monday in Zabul province, which also neighbours Uruzgan, killing four soldiers and injuring 19 as they returned to their base, a defence ministry spokesman said.
Also on Monday, Taliban fighters opened fire on a police vehicle in Kandahar, sparking a gunbattle in which a policeman and an insurgent were killed, police chief Esmatullah Alizai said.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the recent acts of violence.
In a statement released by his press office, the UN secretary general said he was “deeply concerned over the level of insecurity in Afghanistan, as witnessed by events over the weekend.”
Nearly 1,000 people have died in Taliban-related violence since January, including scores of Afghan security forces, civilians and militants themselves, along with 34 foreign soldiers, according to an AFP toll based on reports.
