The war-torn Afghanistan has seen deteriorating of security in the past months as criminal gangs and militants have resorted to abduction of foreigners and attacking soft targets as a new tactic to destabilize security and defame the government.
In a latest move, unknown armed personnel abducted a French aid worker from Kabul Monday morning after shooting dead a passerby who attempted to foil the abductors' design.
"It occurred at around 9:10 a.m. local time (0440 GMT) when three gunmen kidnapped the French aid worker in the Kart-e-Parwan area of Kabul," said a statement of Interior Ministry on Monday.
"The aid worker is working for a French-based non-government organization," it said. "One local Afghan who has been identified as the driver of a provincial intelligence chief was shot dead while trying to rescue the Frenchman."
Taliban militants have denied involvement in the abduction, but police at the site blamed the enemies of peace, a term usually used against anti-government militants including Taliban, for the incident and denounced it.
Barbaric attacks on soft targets including non-combatant foreigners in the capital city Kabul has been on rise over the past couple of months.
In the past October, unknown armed men abducted a Canadian journalist from Qargha district of Kabul which was followed by assassination of a British female aid worker Gayle Williams at daylight on charge of preaching Christianity in Kabul and Taliban immediately claimed responsibility.
Moreover, a guard of an international shipping company DHL in a shadowy way gunned down the director and deputy director of company. Interior Ministry in a statement released later did not rule out the involvement of Taliban in the incident, adding the guard could have been hired by the insurgents.
Taliban in a shocking move abducted 23 South Korean nationals in July 2007 and killed two hostages before releasing 21 others.
Successive attacks on foreigners and businessmen in Kabul where Afghan and international security forces are patrolling round the clock has caused concern and panic among foreign nationals and locals.
In addition to Taliban insurgents, both the observers and government officials believe that criminal gangs are involved in abduction for ransom.
The gang of abductors in their latest wave of kidnapping took away Hamayon Shah Asifi, a politician and businessman, demanding 5million U.S. dollars but security forces in a surprise achievement raided the gang's hideout and secured his release.
Earlier, the abductors kidnapped the owner of a wedding hall and demanded 10 million U.S. dollars for his release.
These two ex-abductees were lucky that have been set free while dozens of others had either been robbed from wealth or killed.
The practice and government's failure to smash any ring leaders of such bands have tarnished the image of the administration at the eyes of Afghan people and that is why the investment has dropped down from 1 billion U.S. dollars in 2007 to 500 million U.S. dollars this year.
In a bid to improve security situation and ally the concern of locals, President Hamid Karzai replaced a bunch of ministers including the minister for interior last month.
"Afghan Ministry for Interior is concerned over increase in abduction cases, and in order to check the menace it has been mulling out the formation of a special police force to deal with the problem," a statement of the ministry released here Monday stressed.
Source: Xinhua
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