KABUL — An attack on American diplomats, a survey that shows increased support for the Taliban, and the liberation of some very nasty Taliban leaders from their jail cells.

This was a bad week in Afghanistan, unless your name is Daniele Mastrogiacomo, and then it was a very good week.

That's because he's still alive.

Mastrogiacomo is the Italian journalist who wandered into Helmand province, hoping to score an interview with the Taliban leadership, and got himself taken hostage instead. I don't know all the details, but it's not the kind of place you go unless you have very good protection or a warm and friendly invitation. I assume he had neither.

What happened next is all too familiar. The Taliban released a couple of grainy videotapes of Mastrogiacomo pleading for his life, laid out their demands, and then waited.

A few days later, they hit the jackpot.

The Italian was released after the Afghanistan government agreed to exchange one big-name foreign correspondent for five captured Taliban militants. His Afghan driver Syed Agha wasn't so lucky. He was beheaded in the desert after a Taliban kangaroo court found him guilty of "espionage."

It's obvious what happened. The Italians put enormous pressure on Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, just ahead of a crucial vote in Rome that could bring down the government and end Italy's military involvement in Afghanistan. The message was brutally clear: Help us out, or the troops could be gone.

I'm very happy for Daniele Mastrogiacomo. He survived every correspondent's nightmare, except that the deal to win his freedom may have jeopardized my safety and that of every other journalist, aid worker, and private contractor now in Afghanistan.

Within hours the American government issued a chilling statement. It said U.S. intelligence had received "credible information" that the Taliban, buoyed by their recent success, "will undertake additional kidnappings of foreigners in southern Afghanistan."

A private contractor I know, was far more direct. And furious. He's one of a few foreign civilians who lives in Kandahar City, and depends on discretion, caution and luck for his safety.

"The Afghan government has capitulated," he says, "and it puts my life in danger."

A foreign diplomat who enjoys a close relationship with Karzai was just as outraged. For the most part however, he blamed the Italians. "I can tell you," he says, "that we were all very disappointed."

"It's now extremely dangerous for journalists," and this from a diplomat who knows Afghanistan, the media and the Taliban extremely well. "I just heard a report that a Taliban commander told his followers: 'That seemed to work well, let's find another journalist'."

The Taliban militants who were released are all very well known in Afghanistan. They're not pocket change. Three of them were pursued and captured in Pakistan, and after all the abuse Hamid Karzai has heaped on his Pakistani neighbors for not doing enough, it make you wonder how they feel about all of this.

Karzai's people admit there was a deal, but say it was an "exception" and won't happen again. In Rome they cheered the journalist's freedom, but deplored the exchange that made it happen.

One right-wing newspaper called it, "straight-out repugnant," while La Stampa posed the impertinent rhetorical question: "Has Italy become the weak link in the international alliance?"

Some people I know would answer yes, without a moment's thought.