KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) — Police in Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar searched Sunday for an abducted female US aid worker and her driver as authorities awaited contact from the kidnappers.
The extremist Taliban, who have been linked to several kidnappings, said meanwhile they were trying to see if any of their members were involved but could not "yet" take responsibility for Saturday's abductions.
Police searched vehicles leaving Kandahar city with emphasis on the area where Cyd Mizell, 49, and her Afghan driver were seized while travelling to work on Saturday, an AFP reporter said.
"Our goal is to stop the suspected abductors from taking the hostage out of town and hopefully, with God's help, arrest those who have abducted her," said one of the police officers, who gave his name only as Hashmatullah.
The kidnappers had not made contact, said the Afghan government and Mizell's employer, a small Philippines-headquartered community development organisation called the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation (ARLDF).
"The police are working on the case and we are trying our best to make her release safe," Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.
"As yet no one has made contact with the police."
ARLDF international director Jeff Palmer told AFP: "We are extremely concerned for her and her driver and we are still waiting for the contact."
The organisation operated "very cautiously" in Kandahar and this was the first time it had experienced such an incident, he said.
Few foreigners live and work in the southern city because of the threat from Taliban insurgents, who are most active in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
The Al-Qaeda-linked militia, in government between 1996 and 2001, was involved in a series of abductions of foreigners last year and has said the tactic was effective in putting pressure on the government and its allies.
Criminal groups have also been behind a rash of kidnappings in recent months and are sometimes believed to pass their hostages onto the Taliban.
The main Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, told AFP Sunday that he did not have information on Mizell's abduction "so far."
"We cannot take responsibility for it as of yet," he said.
Mizell had been in the Kandahar area for nearly three years working with women and on income-generation projects, according to her organisation's website www.arldf.net.
She taught English and embroidery and spoke the local language, Pashtu, it said.
Officials said the American had been wearing a burqa -- the all-encompassing garment that most Afghan women wear and which covers the face -- when she was captured.
Taliban militants have targeted aid workers and reconstruction projects in an attempt to undermine efforts to extend the reach of the government in the provinces.
One of the men searched in Kandahar Sunday condemned the kidnapping as a shameful act for his Pashtun culture, more so because it involved a woman.
"Such abductions have never happened in the history of Afghanistan but in the past couple of years," said Habibullah Khan, in his mid-50s.
"This is a group which hijacks our history, our name and culture," he said, referring to the Taliban.
The hardliners killed two of their foreign hostages last year, both male South Korean Christian aid workers, when the Afghan government did not bow to a demand to release certain of its men from jail.
The other 21 South Koreans were released after secret negotiations between the militia and Seoul.
A German hostage was also shot dead last year by his captors, also linked to the Taliban.
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