Taliban insurgents have kidnapped four staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) southwest of the Afghan capital Kabul, but will release them soon, a Taliban spokesman said today.
The ICRC confirmed that four men, including two expatriates, had been seized by the "armed opposition" yesterday and called for a swift resolution of the situation.
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| The International Committee of the Red Cross
main office in Kabul today. Image: Reuters. |
The Swiss-based agency said its humanitarian work would continue in Afghanistan, one of its biggest operations worldwide.
Taliban have kidnapped dozens of Afghans and foreigners in recent months as part of their campaign to create an atmosphere of insecurity, and undermine the government and its Western backers.
The Taliban said it seized the two Afghan and two foreign ICRC staff members, but it was unaware of their identity at the time.
"Our mujahideen detained the Red Cross workers in Wardak province without knowing they were ICRC staff," said a Taliban spokesman who declined to be named. "We have nothing against the Red Cross and we are going to release them soon."
Swiss Television reported that the empty ICRC vehicle -- which bore the agency's emblem of a Red Cross on a white background -- had been found on the route to Kandahar.
ICRC spokeswoman Carla Haddad said the ICRC team was returning from a failed humanitarian mission to facilitate the release of a German engineer held by the Taliban, but to its knowledge there was no link between that mission and the kidnap.
"We confirm that four ICRC staff members were seized by an armed opposition group on their way back to the delegation in Kabul in the district of Wardak, southwest of Kabul," Haddad said in Geneva.
The expatriate staff are from Myanmar and Macedonia, while the other two are Afghan national employees, she said. She declined to release their names or ages.