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Afghan authorities were grappling with a third hostage crisis involving foreigners Saturday after a German woman was abducted by armed men in the capital Kabul, officials and witnesses said.No one immediately claimed responsibility for the woman's abduction, which one local police source said was the work of a criminal gang-not the Taliban militants holding 19 South Korean aid workers and a German engineer
elsewhere.Members of the hardline militia have also kidnapped four Afghan engineers working on a bridge project in the south of the central Asian country.In Kabul,Afghan officials confirmed the abduction of the German woman,but gave little details about the circumstances of the kidnapping."Today at 1:30 in the afternoon (0900 GMT), a German woman was abducted by unknown armed men in an alley," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.Police had cordoned off the area and were searching for the gunmen and their captive, Bashary and police said.A police official who asked not to be named said the woman was having lunch with a male companion at a pizza parlour on a quiet road in western Kabul when four men with pistols entered and forced her into their vehicle at gunpoint.The German foreign ministry in Berlin indicated there had been an abduction."We should work on the theory that there has been a kidnapping," said Julia Gross, a ministry spokesperson.Christian aid organisation Ora International said the woman kidnapped had worked in its Kabul office for the past year.
Ulf Baumann, Ora's spokesman, said the 31-year-old woman, whom he did not name, had been abducted while in a restaurant with her husband, who escaped.Ora International, based at Aumuehle, near Hamburg,describes itself on its website as "a non-denominational Christian relief and development organisation that serves people in need around the world."Earlier, a 12-year-old boy told AFP he had witnessed the abduction and that it had taken place as the couple crossed a road.Another police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said police had pinpointed several areas where the kidnappers could be hiding."This is not the work of Taliban, this is a criminal case and abduction for ransom,"he said."We most probably will carry out a police raid of suspected compounds in a bid to release the hostage."The official said a taxi driver caught in crossfire between a police officer and the kidnappers as they sped from the scene had been killed.A taxi with a bullet hole in its rear window and blood stains on the driver's seat was parked in the area.The Taliban usually claim immediate responsibility for abductions, but have so far made no comment on the German woman's disappearance.The Taliban and their Al-Qaeda backers have said kidnapping foreigners is a new strategy in their aim of forcing the withdrawal of international troops from the country.Earlier Saturday, a spokesman for the hardline militia said the Taliban were deciding the fate of the Koreans, abducted in volatile southern Ghazni province nearly a month ago, as negotiations aimed at securing their release had failed.The Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said further negotiations seemed unlikely.
The extremists are also holding a German man, Rudolph Blechschmidt, 62, who was kidnapped with a colleague on July 18 in Wardak province.The other German man suffered circulatory failure a few days after his capture and was shot dead by his captors.And Kandahar police chief Sayed Aqa Saqib said the four Afghan engineers were taken hostage on Friday when militants opened fire on a construction site in Shah Wali Kot district, killing one labourer in the process.
The Afghan government has said it will not bow to the Taliban demands as doing so would help create a kidnapping industry.The US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai was heavily criticised, notably by Washington, after it freed five Taliban in March in exchange for an Italian journalist.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070818184332.fl3o5gdy&show_article=1&catnum=0
As in the days of Noah...
