Update: Italian Hostage Freed

Clementina Cantoni, an Italian aid worker abducted in Kabul last month, has been released.

No details about her release were immediately provided.

Afghan officials had been in contact with the kidnappers but had refused to say who they were or what demands they had.
Schoolgirls backed the campaign to release Clementina Cantoni

Days after her abduction, a video was broadcast on a private TV channel, showing Ms Cantoni wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the floor between two gunmen with weapons pointed at her head.

The Afghan government had criticised the Italian embassy in Kabul for trying to negotiate Ms Cantoni's release with her kidnappers.

Let's hope Italian taxpayers get a better deal than they did last time.

More: Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali says no ransom was paid:

Jalali said combined pressure from the Afghan public, President Hamid Karzai, tribal leaders and Muslim clerics persuaded the kidnapper, who he described as a criminal, to release her.

Jalali said negotiators worked "relentlessly, tried to use every channel, every effort to win the release of Clementina. We had 24 days of sleepless nights and we are happy that it paid off."

Hmm. Hokay.

MORE:

Ms Cantoni, who was released yesterday, said her hostage takers numbered between four and six and their leader introduced himself immediately as Timur Shah. . . . Italian newspapers reported that Ms Cantoni was freed in exchange for the release of Shah's mother.

An Afghan official in Kabul confirmed that Shah's mother was released from custody, but said that the authorities wanted to release her anyway as there was no grounds to charge her. They had originally suspected her of participating in a previous kidnapping attributed to Shah's gang.