KABUL (AFP) — Afghanistan's insurgent Taliban movement said Wednesday it was not responsible for the kidnapping two days ago of an Indian and Nepalese national, as police continued to search for the men.
Police had suggested Tuesday that the militant group may have been involved in the abduction of the two men in the western province of Herat late Monday.
But Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said his organisation was not involved.
"We cannot take responsibility for the kidnapping of the two foreigners," he told AFP. "We have asked all our allies but they reject this."
Taliban insurgents have been blamed for scores of such abductions over the past years, but criminal gangs also snatch people to extort ransoms.
Security officials said the Afghan driver of the two men had said they were abducted by armed militants while travelling to the remote Adraskan district, which borders Iran.
The driver, who is being questioned, said he had been freed but the other men were taken off, the officials said.
Police had gone to the district to search for the missing men, said the police spokesman for western Afghanistan, Abdul Rauf Ahmadi.
The Indian man, said to be providing logistics for Afghan security forces, had worked in Afghanistan for five years, an Afghan government official said.
Two Indian engineers were killed in the southwestern province of Nimroz on April 12 in a double suicide attack claimed by the Taliban.
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