KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- In a claim disputed by Afghanistan and
Germany, a purported Taliban spokesman said the hard-line militia killed
two German hostages but offered to trade 23 captive South Koreans for
imprisoned Taliban fighters.

The militant spokesman offered no proof for his claim Saturday, and
Afghan officials said one of the Germans appeared to have died from a heart
attack and that the other was still alive.

"Everything indicates he was a victim of the stress of the kidnapping,"
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, said the
militants were willing to release the South Korean hostages in exchange for
imprisoned Taliban fighters. He said the Afghan and South Korean
governments had until Sunday evening to agree to release 23 Taliban
militants or the Korean hostages would be killed.

"If the government of Afghanistan and the government of Korea are asking
for the release of their hostages, then we believe the Taliban also have
the right to ask for the release of their prisoners who are spending time
in Afghan jails," Ahmadi told The Associated Press by satellite phone from
an undisclosed location.

It is not clear that Afghanistan would agree to such a deal. President
Hamid Karzai in March authorized the release of five Taliban prisoners in
exchange for a kidnapped Italian reporter, but he called the trade a
one-time deal amid criticism from the United States and European capitals
that the trade would encourage more kidnappings.

Ahmadi claimed the Germans and five Afghans kidnapped along with them
were shot to death because Germany did not withdraw its 3,000 troops from
Afghanistan as demanded by the Taliban. The seven were kidnapped on
Wednesday in the southern province of Wardak while working on a dam
project.

The Afghan government said it had contradictory information.

"The information that we and our security forces have is that one of
these two who were kidnapped died of a heart attack," Foreign Ministry
spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said. "The second hostage is alive, and we
hope that he will be released soon, and we are trying our best to get him
released."

He did not say anything about the Afghan hostages.

The South Koreans were kidnapped at gunpoint from a bus in Ghazni
province's Qarabagh district on Thursday as they traveled on the main
highway from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar. It was the
largest-scale abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime
in 2001.

Ahmadi initially said the kidnapped Koreans, including 18 women, would
be killed Saturday if South Korea didn't withdraw its 200 troops, which it
already plans to do by the end of this year. Late Saturday he changed that
demand.

It was unclear what the Koreans were doing in Afghanistan. The Yonhap
news agency reported that most of the hostages were members of the Saemmul
Community Church in Bundang, just south of the South Korean capital, Seoul.

Germany has 3,000 soldiers in NATO's International Security Assistance
Force who are stationed in the mostly peaceful northern part of
Afghanistan. South Korea's 200 soldiers in the U.S.-led coalition largely
work on humanitarian projects, such as medical assistance and
reconstruction.