Afghanistan mine clearers freed

Ten members of an Afghan mine clearing team kidnapped last week have been released, officials say.

Those freed, two of them doctors, were among 13 people being held in eastern Paktia province. It is not clear who abducted them or what they want.

Officials say tribal elders are still negotiating with the kidnappers and the remaining hostages will be freed soon.

The de-miners were travelling in two cars on Thursday when they were seized by insurgents, police said.

Taleban denial

Kefayatullah Eblagh, the head of the independent de-mining agency, Afghan Technical Consultants (ATC) for which the men work, confirmed the release.

Ten of them have been freed and negotiations to free the remaining three others are under way Local official Din Mohammad Darvish

"An eight-member delegation of tribal chiefs had guaranteed the safety of the de-miners, so they worked out their freedom," he told Reuters news agency.

Mr Eblagh said that according to the elders, the other three men kidnapped - two de-miners and one driver - would be freed within two more days.

Din Mohammad Darvish, a spokesman for the local administration, said no ransom had been paid.

"Ten of them have been freed and negotiations to free the remaining three others are under way," he told AFP news agency.

Mr Darvish did not say who the kidnappers were, merely describing them as "enemies of Afghanistan" - a term often used to describe Taleban.

A Taleban spokesman has said the movement was not behind the abduction.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kabul says Afghans are kidnapped far more often than foreigners, sometimes by criminal gangs and sometimes by insurgents.

The kidnapping comes after a number of high-profile abductions by the Taleban in recent months.

In July, 23 South Koreans were taken hostage. Two were killed and the others released, the last of them in late August.

Mine clearers abducted in the past have sometimes been released and sometimes killed, our correspondent says.