Japanese media are reporting today that a Japanese journalist thought to have been kidnapped by the Afghan Taliban has been released after five months in captivity.
The Jiji Press Agency quotes diplomats who say that Kosuke Tsuneoka, a freelance journalist missing in northern Afghanistan since April, is now under protection at the Japanese Embassy in Kabul.
A Japanese Foreign Ministry official in Tokyo, however, declined to comment on the report.
Criminal groups and Taliban militants have kidnapped several dozen foreigners, many of them journalists, since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime in Kabul.
compiled from agency reports