Troops Hunt for Abducted Engineer

Afghan and coalition forces searched for a Turkish engineer whom insurgents have threatened to kill unless a number of Taliban prisoners are released.

A Taliban spokesman had said Hasan Onal would be killed by the end of Sunday if the prisoners were not freed, but the deadline passed, apparently without incident. Turkey’s foreign minister said later that he had information the deadline had been lifted.

Onal, who has been working to rebuild the road between the capital, Kabul, and the southern city of Kandahar, was abducted with his Afghan driver Thursday.