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.”
PHOTO: AP
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.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person