Toronto Star

Western journalists could be kidnapped in Kandahar: Foreign Affairs

OTTAWA (CP) - The Foreign Affairs Department frantically called news organizations across the country Monday night warning of a Taliban plot to invite western journalists into Kandahar, then trap and use them as bargaining chips.

"In exchange for the captured journalists, what's left of the Taliban regime would demand that Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners be freed and the bombing campaign stopped," said Reynald Doiron, a department spokesman.

He said the Islamic militia would issue "a direct threat to kill the journalists" if their orders weren't followed.

Doiron told The Canadian Press to warn its reporters to flatly refuse any such offers from the Taliban.

When asked if any foreign journalists had been trapped in the alleged plot, Doiron said, "not yet."

He would not say how the Department learned of the Taliban's plan. "People who pass these kinds of messages, you will never see their sources," he said.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001