Gunmen kidnapped five Health Ministry employees in Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar province while insurgents killed a district official elsewhere, reportedly on the orders of the Taliban supreme leader, officials said Thursday.
Insurgent bombings, gunbattles, assassinations and abductions have been increasing this year as thousands of American troops partnered with Afghan forces fan out in the militants' southern strongholds to try to wrest back control and establish effective local government.
Members of a medical team were abducted Wednesday afternoon while returning to Kandahar city, the provincial capital, after visiting a project in Maiwand district, provincial spokesman Zulmi Ayubi said Thursday. The gunmen forced the car to stop about a mile (two kilometers) outside Maiwand and abducted two doctors, a pharmacist, a nurse and their driver, Ayubi said. The Health Ministry issued a statement calling for their release. The kidnappers were not identified
In neighbouring Uruzgan province, insurgents manning a makeshift checkpoint pulled a district leader out of his vehicle and shot him dead in the road on Tuesday, according to Gulab Khan, the provincial deputy police chief. Saleh Mohammad was a member of a local tribal council in Khas Uruzgan district, an area where US forces are working with local government.
A US special forces officer was quoted in a Nato statement as saying the local leader was on a list of Afghan officials that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the leader of the main Afghan Taliban faction, sent to his followers with orders to kill them.
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