The opposition Democratic Labour party were outside the US embassy in Seoul to urge intervention [EPA]

The latest deadline set by the group with regard to the church volunteers seized on July 19 has expired.

It has already killed two of the 23 captives and said it would kill more unless the Afghan government frees some Taliban prisoners.
 
"Yes, they are alive. But the danger [of killing] them remains. It is possible that they will be killed," Qari Mohammad Yousuf, the Taliban spokesman said on Wednesday without giving a time frame.
 
He said two women hostages were now seriously ill.

"The majority of the hostages are ill, but two females are seriously ill and there is this possibility that they may die," Yousuf said.
 
He said the two were suffering from an unknown illness and the Taliban did not have the right medicines to treat them.
 
The Afghan government has refused to free Taliban prisoners, saying it would only encourage further abductions.
 
The hostages – 16 women and seven men – were kidnapped while on a bus.

'Flexibility'

In an apparent reference to the US policy of not negotiating with anyone it deems terrorists, the South Korean president's office said: "The government is well aware of how the international community deals with these kinds of abduction cases.

"But it also believes that it would be worthwhile to use flexibility in the cause of saving the precious lives of those still in captivity."
 
The Taliban had extended several previous deadlines without consequences, but killed Shim Sung-min on Monday after a deadline passed. The group's pastor was killed last week.

A South Korean civic group criticised the US for refusing to get more involved in the standoff, saying it was as if the US was watching "a fire across a river".

The group also questioned what South Korea had earned for its alliance with Washington in its anti-terrorism campaign. Seoul has sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq.
 
Government steadfast

The Afghan government explicitly said for the first time on Tuesday that it would not release Taliban prisoners – the group's chief demand to free the captives.

Humayun Hamidzada, a spokesman for Hamid Karzai, the president, said: "As a principle, we shouldn't encourage kidnapping by accepting their demands."

In March, Karzai authorised the freeing of five Taliban fighters for the release of an Italian reporter, but called the exchange a one-time deal.

Tom Casey, a spokesman for the US state department, said there was regular contact between US and South Korean officials on the standoff, but would not comment on specifics.

Afghan judges killed

In a separate development, the bodies of four Afghan judges kidnapped nearly two weeks ago have been found in the same province where Taliban fighters are holding the South Koreans.

The bound feet of two of the judges [AFP]

A photographer for Agence France-Presse, the French news agency, said he had seen the bodies of the four men.

He said one had been shot in the head, the others in the body, and that their feet had been bound.

Police said the bodies had been dumped in a village in the southern Ghazni province.

The Taliban had claimed to have kidnapped the four but did not immediately confirm it was responsible for their murder.

Mohammad Zaman, a deputy police chief, said the men were judges from the neighbouring province of Paktika.

He said: "They were killed and their bodies were found in Dehyak district last night."

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