'Thieves' snatched aid worker
2005-05-17 10:11
Kabul - A group of "thieves" has claimed responsibility for kidnapping an Italian relief worker from her car in the Afghan capital, a senior police official said on Tuesday.
The group contacted authorities to claim the abduction of Clementina Cantoni, 32, General Jamil Jumbesh, head of the Interior Ministry's anti-terrorism division, said. He declined to say whether the group had made demands or give other details.
"A group of thieves claimed they did the kidnapping," Jumbesh said.
Four men abducted Cantoni, an employee of Care International, in downtown Kabul on Monday evening, the first kidnapping of a foreigner in Afghanistan since three United Nations election workers were seized last October and held for nearly a month.
'Deeply concerned'
Security officials have repeatedly warned that criminals might try to kidnap foreigners in an attempt to force the release of suspects recently arrested in the UN case.
While a Taliban splinter group claimed responsibility for those abductions, Afghan officials said earlier this month that six men in police custody, including a suspected bank robber named Tilagai, had confessed to the kidnappings.
Hundreds of police officers manned checkpoints across the city through the night to search for Cantoni and her captors, said General Mahboubullah Amiri, a police commander in the Interior Ministry.
"They are searching cars and asking the drivers for their documents, but there are no positive signs so far," Amiri said.
Cantoni's abduction is "painful news, but I am sure that the work of our intelligence together with diplomacy will succeed" in freeing her, Selva said.
The Italian foreign ministry said a crisis unit was working
The aid group said Cantoni had been engaged in humanitarian work for 10 years and lived since March 2002 in Afghanistan, where she led a project helping thousands of Afghan widows and their families.
"Care International is deeply concerned and calls for her immediate release," it said in a brief statement released in Brussels.
An agency driver had just dropped a Canadian woman at a house in downtown Kabul on Monday evening when the kidnappers driving a sedan cut off the vehicle and abducted Cantoni, said Paul Barker, the agency's director in Afghanistan.
"Four men carrying Kalashnikovs bashed in the window of her car and took her away. They told the driver not to move or he would be shot," Barker said.
Marco Formigoni, a family friend, spoke to reporters outside the Cantoni family home in an upscale Milan neighbourhood, relaying the family's hope "that this affair ends quickly and well."
The abduction of Cantoni was the latest in a string of attacks in Kabul and reinforced fears that militants or criminals are copying tactics used in Iraq.
Margaret Hassan, Care's British director in Iraq, was kidnapped in Baghdad in October and believed killed, although no body was recovered.
- AP