In brief: Taliban threaten to kill hostages

Taliban militants threatened Friday to kill a group of abducted South Korean Christians, including 15 women, within 24 hours unless the Asian nation withdraws its 200 troops from Afghanistan. South Korea said Saturday it plans to withdraw its forces by the end of this year as scheduled.

Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told reporters in Seoul that 23 South Koreans were kidnapped and indicated they are safe. A purported Taliban spokesman said Friday that the group was holding 18 Koreans.

In the largest abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, several dozen fighters kidnapped the South Koreans at gunpoint from a bus in Ghazni province on Thursday, said Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief.

South Korea has about 200 troops serving with an 8,000-strong U.S.-led force, which is separate from the 40,000-member NATO-led force.

It was unclear what the kidnapped Koreans were doing in Afghanistan.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif.

Convicted Marine won’t serve time

A Marine convicted of kidnapping and conspiring to murder an Iraqi civilian who was killed by troops looking for an insurgent will not serve a prison term, a military jury decided Friday.

Cpl. Trent Thomas was sentenced to a bad-conduct discharge and a reduction in rank to private, which carries lower pay. He could have received life in prison for his role in the April 2006 killing of the retired Iraqi policeman in the village of Hamdania.

Thomas, of Madison, Ill., was among seven Marines and a Navy corpsman accused of snatching 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad from his house, marching him to a nearby ditch and shooting him after they botched an attempt to capture a suspected insurgent.

Prosecutors said squad members tried to cover up the killing by planting a shovel and AK-47 by Awad’s body to make it look like he was an insurgent planting a bomb.

VAN WERT, Ohio

Ambulance crew, patients killed

An ambulance headed to a hospital Friday night was broadsided by a car in an intersection and caught fire, killing three emergency medical technicians and two patients, the State Highway Patrol said.

The patients were being treated for injuries from an earlier car wreck when their ambulance was struck in Crane Township.

A fourth Antwerp Emergency Medical Services worker and the driver of the other vehicle were taken to a hospital for treatment, the patrol said. Their conditions were not immediately available.

Names of the victims were being withheld pending the notification of the families, and the patrol continues to investigate the accident.