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Afghan officials search for French

A boy walks with his donkey as a police officer frisks a young man at a checkpoint in Kabul, Afghanistan, yesterday. US presidential contender Barack Obama arrived in Afghanistan yesterday, a spokesman said. PHOTO: AP

Authorities were yesterday searching for two French aid workers kidnapped in central Afghanistan, but the Taliban denied capturing them.

The Action Against Hunger (Action Contre la Faim) workers were taken from their guest house in the early hours of Friday in the central province of Day Kundi, their Paris-based organization has said.

“We have no news on their fate,” provincial governor Sultan Ali Uruzgani said. “Our security forces have been searching for them.”

The interior ministry in the capital Kabul said it did not know who had taken them.

“Day Kundi does not see a strong infiltration of insurgents and terrorists,” ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

The Taliban, waging an insurgency against the government of President Hamid Karzai, have been involved in a series of kidnappings in Afghanistan, as have criminal gangs seeking ransom.

A spokesman for the militant group, Zabihullah Mujahed, denied the Taliban had the French nationals.

There are several rebel groups operating in Afghanistan, while crime has shot up since the Taliban government was overthrown in a US-led invasion in late 2001 for harboring al-Qaeda.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the abduction last week of an Afghan senator 70km outside of Kabul. They have said they would free him in exchange for the release from jail of some of their men.

But they denied involvement in the kidnapping near the western city of Herat last week of two Turkish nationals working for a construction company.

Afghan police said a German national abducted near the city in mid-December was believed to have been killed after a ransom was not paid for his release.

Action Against Hunger has projects in Day Kundi, about 300km east of the capital, to improve access to food, water and sanitation, according to their website. The province is one of the poorest in the country.

The organization has only 10 expatriate staff in Afghanistan. It suspended its relief operations in the country after the abductions.

A French businessman was kidnapped in Afghanistan in May, apparently by Taliban militants, and released about a month later after a ransom was paid, according to Afghan officials.

Last year, two French humanitarian workers for the Terre D’Enfance (“A World For Our Children”) relief group were abducted and passed to the Taliban.

They were released weeks later amid speculation that a ransom was paid.
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