Seven men held, but no word of kidnapped Irish woman

International aid workers kept a low profile today after the brazen daylight kidnapping of an Irish woman and two other foreign UN election staff in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Police today arrested seven suspects and cordoned off an area west of Kabul, Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal said.

Three of the seven were armed men wearing military uniforms without belonging to any regular military or police unit, Mashal said.

But he said interrogation of the suspects had established no link to yesterday’s kidnapping.

Two of the victims were women, Annetta Flanigan from Co Armagh (who has dual Irish and British nationality), and a Kosovan. The third was a male diplomat from the Philippines. All work for a joint UN Afghan commission overseeing landmark presidential elections.

The abductions came a week after a suicide attack killed an American woman and an Afghan teenager in the normally secure capital and ahead of final results due in the historic October 9 presidential poll.

Interim leader Hamid Karzai, set to become the nation’s first elected president, condemned the abduction as “a criminal act against the Afghan people, aimed at derailing the process of peace and prosperity.

“Kidnapping won’t be tolerated and every possible measure will be taken to ensure the security of the UN employees and other international organisations.”

A man claiming to speak for a Taliban splinter group, Jaish-al Muslimeen, said it was responsible for the kidnappings but offered no proof it was holding the three.

Ishaq Manzoor said it had staged the kidnapping and taken the three to a “safe place”.

“We are checking their identities and we will demand that if their countries have forces in Afghanistan they should withdraw them,” Manzoor said by satellite telephone.

About a half-dozen purported Taliban spokesmen call local and international media groups to make claims and take responsibility for attacks.

Sometimes their claims prove false, and their links to the Taliban are impossible to verify.

Britain has a limited number of servicemen with the Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Staff of aid agencies were told to restrict all but essential movements around Kabul, which is patrolled by thousands of Nato peacekeepers, making it usually one of the safest places in the country.

“It’s an ominous development,” said Paul Barker of the aid group CARE International. “We’ve not seen this kind of incident in Kabul before and I think we are still trying to figure out if it is a new trend or a one-off. Until it’s resolved, we won’t really know.”

Afghan and Nato forces put up roadblocks around the city, and police and troops searched houses. The American military said it was ready to help in any rescue operation.

“We’re still searching but we haven’t been able to find them. We’ve got no leads,” Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal said today.

The three were abducted about a half mile from an election office in Kabul.

In New York, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the world body was hoping an “immediate and unconditional release.”

Suspected Taliban rebels have kidnapped foreigners on several occasions during the past year in southern Afghanistan, but never in the capital.

In March, a Turkish engineer was shot dead and another abducted along the main Kabul-Kandahar highway. The survivor was released unharmed after three months.

About 1,000 people have died in political violence in Afghanistan this year, including more than 30 American soldiers. Still, it has not involved abductions or suicide attacks of the intensity seen in Iraq.