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December 2, 2008 5:12:23 AM CST

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Afghan Gunmen Kidnap Female US Aid Worker

Posted Jan 26, 08 8:39 AM CST in Crime & Courts,  World 

(Newser) – An American woman has been kidnapped in Afghanistan along with her driver, the AP reports. The woman, 49, worked for an aid organization and was wearing a burqa when she was stopped near the southern city of Kandahar. Police are searching for the kidnappers, whom a local governor called “the enemy of Islam and the enemy of Afghanistan.”

The kidnappers have not contacted the government, and the US embassy had no further information. Though several Westerners have been kidnapped in Afghanistan in the past year, the crime marks the first recent kidnapping of an American in the country, where a growing Taliban insurgency as well as drug crime has made travel perilous.

Source Associated Press

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Afghan policemen checks a vehicle after an American aid worker was kidnapped in Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)   (Associated Press)
Afghan policemen search a vehicle after an American aid worker was kidnapped in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)   (Associated Press)
An Afghan policeman keeps guard in front of the office of Asian Rural Life Development Foundation in Kandahar, where the office of the kidnapped American aid worker is located. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)   (Associated Press)
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Afghanistan • Taliban • kidnapping • insurgents • Americans • Kandahar • aid workers


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