Amnesty International said it has directly appealed to the Taliban to free 21 South Korean hostages, warning the militant movement that holding and killing captives is a war crime.The human rights group said it made the appeal in a phone call to a purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi on Thursday. “Hostage taking and the killing of hostages are war crimes and their perpetrators must be brought to justice,” Irene Khan, secretary-general of the London-based group, said in a statement.Ahmadi told Amnesty that “we are trying to resolve this issue. acceptably,” but did not agree to protect the hostages from harm and release them immediately, the statement said.The call for freeing the captives, who include 16 women and five men, came as South Korean lawmakers went to Washington to urge the US to help end the hostage crisis.The Taliban have already shot and killed two men in the group, which was doing voluntary health work in Afghanistan. They were abducted on July 19 in Ghazni province as they traveled by bus from Kabul to Kandahar.Richard Boucher, assistant US secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said on Thursday the use of military force to free the hostages had not been ruled out.Afghan officials said Taliban captors agreed to meet with South Korea’s ambassador to Afghanistan, but they had not yet agreed on a venue. “If the Taliban want to come to the area where we are for the sake of these hostages, 100 per cent, they will be safe,” Ghazni Gov Marajudin Pathan said on Thursday.
