KABUL (AFP) - Islamic militants holding three United Nations workers hostage in Afghanistan have set a new, fifth deadline for their execution, a spokesman for the group said.
"The final deadline is tomorrow (Saturday) evening," a spokesman for the Taliban splinter group, Jaishul-Muslimeen (Army of Muslims) said. "There is no exact set time."
The kidnappers' fourth deadline expired at 10:00 am Friday (0530 GMT).
Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Shqipe Habibi from Kosovo, and Angelito Nayan from the Philippines were snatched at gunpoint from their vehicle in busy lunchtime traffic in Kabul on October 28.
Jaishul-Muslimeen spokesman Sayed Khaled said the decision to extend the deadline had been taken "at the request of the Afghan government and the UN delegation which called and apologised and promised to contact us by tomorrow evening."
"We are not interested in killing people and our goal is to release the innocent people who are in jail just because they are Afghan," he said.
Jaishul-Muslimeen, a newly-emerged Taliban faction, claims to be holding the three UN workers and has issued a video of the three and Flanigan's credit card number to prove its claims.
The group has demanded that all foreign forces and UN agencies quit Afghanistan and that the US release all Taliban prisoners in its custody.
The news comes as Afghan authorities, initially confident the trio were being kept close to the northwest outskirts of Kabul somewhere in the Paghman valley, a known lair of kidnappers, bandits and some Islamic extremists, admitted they had lost trace of the hostages and their kidnappers.
"We know that they are still in Afghanistan but we don't know exactly where," interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP.
Investigators have begun to concede they may have been spirited out of the Paghman valley to provinces beyond Kabul.
Mashal said there had been "progress" in seeking a "peaceful release" but would not elaborate.
The United Nations was increasingly worried about its employees' condition.
"Given the extreme harsh conditions, we have serious concerns for their health. The psychological pressure must be tremendous, not knowing what will happen from one day to the next, away from their friends and families," UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said.
"We ask those holding them to release them immediately and unharmed."
The three hostages had been helping to oversee Afghanistan's first presidential election.
At least five men claiming to speak on behalf of the Jaishul-Muslimeen group have been in contact with reporters and said they had been negotiating with mediators representing the UN and Afghan authorities.
One of the hostages had fallen so ill she could not speak, said Mohammad Sharif, who described himself as part of Jaishul Muslimeen's 10-member council.
The abduction has cast a pall over the otherwise peaceful October 9 elections and US-backed incumbent Hamid Karzai's resounding victory.
In his acceptance speech Thursday night Karzai made special mention of the hostages.
The 9,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force has offered to help rescue the hostages or secure their release.
The 18,000-strong US-led military coalition has also said it was working with the UN, Afghan authorities and the peacekeepers "to come to a peaceful resolution on this".
11/05/2004 - 19:38 GMT - AFP