An Italian aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan this week is safe, the Afghan foreign minister said yesterday, but he added he had no further details on the abduction.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah also urged world media to act responsibly after a Newsweek report that US military interrogators had desecrated the Koran sparked violent demonstrations in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries.
Newsweek issued a retraction on the report on Monday.
Afghan authorities are searching for 32-year-old Clementina Cantoni, a worker for the CARE International aid agency, who was kidnapped in central Kabul on Monday.
"I can only say that some government officials in security sector of the government are in contact and they are aware of the safety of the kidnapped, but I have no further information," Abdullah told a news conference in Tokyo. The abduction raised fresh fears among Kabul's 2,000-strong foreign community of Iraq-style kidnappings by anti-government insurgents, but President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said on Tuesday that robbers could be behind the incident.
Concerns over security in Afghanistan have also been fuelled by anti-US protests that killed 16 and injured more than 100 last week, set off by the Newsweek report that US interrogators had flushed the Muslim holy book down a toilet.
"The news it turned was not true. But it is very unfortunate that due to the spread of that news we had too many casualties and a lot of disturbances in Afghanistan," Abdullah said.
"That shows how important, how sensitive is what media is doing. A very credible magazine like Newsweek in just one line of news, what could be the impact," Abdullah said.
The White House called on Newsweek on Tuesday to help repair damage to the US' image in the Muslim world caused by the report.
"So in this world, they call it a global village, it shows how sensitive we should be, how we should deal with these issues with care and attention and a sense of responsibility in order to avoid these sort of damages," Abdullah said.
Abdullah said on Wednesday that Afghanistan's security situation was under control, and that there was no widespread anti-US feeling among ordinary Afghans.
Asked whether Karzai would request a permanent US military presence in Afghanistan at his May 23 meeting with US President George W. Bush, Abdullah said only that troops would be one of the main topics of discussion.
Abdullah, in Tokyo for talks on aid and reconstruction with Japanese officials, was due to leave for Dubai later on Thursday.
In related news, six civilians were killed by suspected Taliban in an ambush early yesterday near Qalat in Afghanistan's restive southern Zabul province, the provincial police chief said.
"Six people who were carrying a body in a vehicle were ambushed by Taliban on Aman bridge near Qalat city and they were all killed," said provincial police chief Amir Mohamed. "The attackers [might have] thought it was a government vehicle because it was around 2am and it was dark." The victims were driving the body to Kabul, he said.
A day earlier suspected Taliban insurgents ambushed a vehicle in neighboring Helmand province and killed five Afghan reconstruction workers. The five -- three engineers, their driver and a police guard -- were killed in Grishk district in the troubled southeastern province of Helmand, provincial spokesman Mohammad Wali said.
Also on Wednesday, Afghan security forces acting on a tip-off raided a Taliban hideout and captured six members of the ousted regime in Kandahar province, an intelligence official said.
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