Kabul, Nov 1, SPA -- Militants threatening to killthree foreign hostages in Afghanistan on Monday allowedfour days for negotiations on their demand that the UnitedNations withdraw from the country. One day after a video was aired, showing the three U.N.workers pleading for freedom, the Taliban splinter groupclaiming to hold them also said the trio had been split upto thwart any rescue. "That's our strategy," Ishaq Manzoor, a spokesman forthe group, told The Associated Press in a satellitetelephone call. "If the government and coalition forcesfind one of them, we will kill the other two." Afghan security officials say they have had no contactwith the kidnappers, who plucked the three _ two women fromKosovo and Northern Ireland, and a Filipino man _ from aU.N. vehicle at gunpoint in the capital on Thursday. But Manzoor insisted that a businessman was carryingmessages between the militants and the Afghan governmentand the United Nations.--SPA1158 Local Time 0858 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/214641