Taliban insurgents kidnapped seven members of an Afghan demining team in an ambush in the volatile east of the country on Wednesday and took them into neighbouring Pakistan to evade security forces, a local official said. Haji Hazrat Khaksar, the chief of Momand Dara district in volatile Nangarhar province, said a group of 16 deminers were on their way to his district when they were attacked by Taliban fighters.
Nine of the group escaped while the insurgents fought security forces pursuing the group before crossing into Pakistan, he said. "We couldn't pursue and shoot because they fled and crossed the border with the deminers," Khaksar told Reuters by telephone from Nangarhar. The demining team worked for the Organisation for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation (OMAR), a non-government Afghan body that has been clearing mines and other unexploded ordinance in different parts of the country since 1990.
OMAR employs about 645 people, according to its website (www.landmineclearance.org/). Khaksar said the Taliban drove two vans towards the border before setting the vehicles on fire and escaping. The rugged, mountainous border between Nangarhar and Pakistan's north-west is hard to police and insurgents have long drifted between the two areas to carry out attacks and slip away.