Three workers kidnapped in Afghanistan

Two Turkish engineers and an Afghan have been kidnapped outside Kabul, an official said today, bringing to five the number of workers who have been taken hostage in Afghanistan in the past three days.

Unidentified men burst into the office of a Turkish construction company south-east of the capital on Friday, beat and tied up an Afghan staff member, then abducted two Turkish workers and an Afghan one, said Nick Downie of the Afghanistan NGO Security Office, which protects aid workers.

The three hostages appeared to have been taken from the Khak-i-Jabar area, 15 miles outside Kabul – where they were making new wells – to the neighbouring province of Logar, Downie said.

Their company has not heard from the hostages or their captors, he said.

The Ministry of the Interior and the Turkish Embassy were both investigating the attack.

“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, staying in a village,” Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said in Kabul today. “They are missing, and it is expected that they were kidnapped.”

Yesterday, two Indian highway workers were kidnapped by suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan.

On November 30, Taliban militants freed a Turkish worker after holding him hostage for about a month in southern Afghanistan.