Taliban extend deadline again for French aid worker

KABUL, May 7 (Reuters) Afghanistan's Taliban extended again today their deadline for a deal to release a kidnapped French aid worker, saying French president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy had pressing domestic issues to deal with.

The extension came hours after a rogue Afghan soldier -- the Taliban said he was a militant infiltrator -- shot dead two US soldiers at a high-security prison on the outskirts of Kabul.

The Taliban had previously put off the deadline until after Sunday's French election run-off for Eric Damfreville and three Afghan colleagues from Terre d'Enfance, an agency helping children in southern Afghanistan.

''Since it is a new government, that has to pick its cabinet and deal with ... the problems it has (at home), we give them more time,'' Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said from an undisclosed location. ''We expect them to get in touch with us.'' Last year was the most violent in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

The war has since intensified after a traditional winter lull, with both the Taliban and the US-backed Afghan government seeking a decisive advantage in the battle for the country.

The militants holding the aid workers have demanded the withdrawal of France's 1,100 or so troops from Afghanistan and the release of more Taliban from Afghan jails, but have also said that meeting one of the demands would win the hostages' freedom.

An Italian journalist was released in March in return for Taliban prisoners, in a deal diplomats criticised as likely to prompt more hostage-taking, and the Taliban have released one of the Terre d'Enfance aid workers, French woman Celine Cordelier.

The right-wing Sarkozy pledged after his election win to be a constant ally of the United States, but the Taliban urged France to set a timetable for withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan.

INFILTRATOR? The American soldiers killed were military trainers working with Afghans at Pul-i-Charkhi prison, which is being upgraded by US forces to house suspected Taliban prisoners being returned from US custody in Afghanistan and Guantanamo in Cuba.

The Afghan government said it was investigating whether the attacker was an Afghan soldier or an impersonator, but the Taliban said he was a fighter who had infiltrated the army.

''A large number of our Taliban mujahid (holy warriors) have infiltrated the US-puppet Afghan government to find good targets,'' Taliban commander Mullah Hayatallah Khan told Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.

The soldier shot at vehicles leaving the prison yesterday, and was then shot by other Afghan soldiers, Afghanistan's US-led coalition force said in a statement.

It said two American soldiers were wounded in the attack, while the Taliban said six were killed.

Twelve US-held Taliban were returned to Afghan authorities last month to be held in a newly refurbished wing of the prison, a squat group of buildings ringed by net fences and razor wire.

Pul-i-Charkhi won notoriety in the 1970s when a hardline communist regime jailed large numbers of military rivals, clergy and other political prisoners, with executions held daily.

The prison also holds Jonathan ''Jack'' Idema, an American jailed in 2004 for running a private jail and illegally detaining and torturing people in a freelance hunt for Osama bin Laden. Two others convicted in that case have been released.

In other violence today, a rocket blast outside a house in Kabul killed a young man and wounded five people, including two children, witnesses said.

REUTERS SYU BD1445