Six contractors abducted in Afghanistan

A team of three Pakistanis and three Afghans working on a project in northern Afghanistan have been kidnapped.

MAZAR-I-SHARIF:

A team of three Pakistanis and three Afghans who were working on a road building project in northern Afghanistan have been kidnapped, a local official said on Friday.

The five construction engineers and their Afghan driver were abducted as they travelled in a convoy in the relatively peaceful north of the country late on Thursday, the local director of public works told the news agency.

“They were kidnapped as they were travelling from Jawzjan to Sari Pul province to start their work,” said Enayatullah Zafar.

The governor of Sari Pul province, Sayed Anwar Rahmati, said police had been dispatched to the area to try to track down the men who had been hired by the Afghan government to work on the project.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, but Rahmati blamed the Taliban, saying “small groups” of the insurgents were operating in the mountainous area.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2011.