Afghan forces backed by foreign peacekeepers fanned through a valley west of Kabul on Friday in a massive manhunt for three UN election workers kidnapped by gunmen from outside their office in the Afghan capital.
A woman with dual British-Irish nationality, Annetta Flanigan, a Filipino diplomat, Angelito Nayan, and a Kosovar woman were pulled from their UN-marked car by armed men and bundled into a black four-wheel drive on Thursday, as the slow count from Afghanistan's first presidential vote ended.
"Police, intelligence, and forces from Kabul army garrison have been tasked to find the kidnapped people," an Afghan intelligence official said.
Apache helicopters from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force led the aerial search, as roadblocks were thrown up around the congested city and main streets blocked for car-searches by heavily-armed troop.
After sweeping several neighborhoods in Kabul the security forces honed in on the Paghman valley west of the mountain-ringed capital.
"Investigations are under way," interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said, refusing to give more details.
The Jaishul Muslameen (Army of Muslims), described by intelligence officials as a new military wing of the Taliban, claimed responsibility.
"Fighters from the Army of Muslims have kidnapped the three UN workers," the group's commander, Syed Akbar Agha, told the Arabic television network Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad.
A senior Pakistani religious leader said Jaishul Muslameen was the new military wing of Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban regime, ousted three years ago by US-led forces.
Its mission is to "conduct military operations against occupying forces, targeting foreign nongovernmental organizations and people associated with them," said the Pakistani religious leader, who had close links with the ousted regime.
Mullah Omar, the hardliners' fugitive spiritual leader, was overall commander with Agha, its operational commander, he said.
Afghan intelligence chief for southern Kandahar province, Abdullah Laghmanay, told
AFP this month that the Army of Muslims was a radical new Taliban wing "operating in small bands of two or three fighters."
A regular Taliban spokesman, Abdul Latif Hakimi, said he doubted Jaishul Muslameen had the numbers or capacity to carry out the abduction.
He was unsure whether Taliban militants were behind the abduction but said he would praise the act if it was aimed against US-led forces or at pressing the US to release Taliban prisoners.
The abduction is the first of foreigners in Kabul and has raised fears of copycat kidnappings mimicking the wave of abductions in Iraq.
Suspected Taliban insurgents, who had vowed to sabotage the UN-assisted October 9 presidential elections, have killed more than 61 election workers this year, three of them foreigners.
AFP
Troops hunt for UN kidnap victims in Afghanistan
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