ISLAMABAD, Oct 29: Three foreign United Nations employees kidnapped in Kabul are alive but may be killed if an attempt is made to rescue them, a spokesman for the group that has claimed responsibility for the abduction told AFP on Friday.

"Our group has captured the three foreign infidels and we are keeping them at a safe place. So far they are safe," Mullah Mohammad Ishaq, a spokesman for the Jaishul-Muslameen, said by telephone.

"But if any forces are used against us to free them, those forces will be responsible for whatever harm that will come to the lives of the hostages." Armed men kidnapped British-Irish woman Annetta Flanigan, Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan and a Kosovar woman, all UN employees working to oversee Afghanistan's Oct 9 presidential election, in Kabul on Thursday.

Mullah Ishaq said Jaishul-Muslameen had targeted 25 foreign election workers for kidnapping because they had helped conduct 'fake elections' and keep US-backed interim president Hamid Karzai in power.

"There were 25 people that we targeted but we got only three. They all had come to support the infidel forces," he said. "We are determined to increase our jihad against these infidels and you will see more actions from our group."

Mullah Ishaq said the three hostages were in Afghanistan. He said he was speaking from inside Afghanistan. A senior Pakistani cleric told AFP on Thursday that Jaishul-Muslameen was the new military wing of the Taliban.

"It has been assigned the task of conducting military operations against occupying forces (in Afghanistan), targeting foreign non-governmental organizations and people associated with them," said the cleric, who had links with the Taliban.

He said commander Mullah Omar had created Jaishul-Muslameen as a military force to free up the Taliban to operate as a political entity. Afghan intelligence chief for Kandahar, Abdullah Laghmanay, also told AFP this month that the Jaishul-Muslameen was a radical new Taliban wing "operating in small bands of two or three fighters".

But Mullah Ishaq denied Jaishul-Muslameen was the Taliban's new armed wing. "We are not linked to the Taliban but several Taliban have joined us," he said, adding the group had 5,600 fighters. -AFP