HERAT, Sept 23: Police said Sunday that they were searching for two Italian nationals and two Afghans in western Afghanistan as they had not been in touch for nearly 24 hours.
The Italian defence ministry said the missing Italians were soldiers who had not been in contact with authorities for ‘several hours’. The International Security Assistance Force said it had no information about the incident.
Afghan police were investigating if the four might have been kidnapped in Herat, said the police chief in charge of criminal investigations for western Afghanistan, Ali Khan Husseinzada.
He said they had been out of contact since Saturday when they had visited Shindand district.
A Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said he did not know anything about the missing men.
Intelligence reports said the four had left Herat city in two vehicles on Saturday and abandoned one of the cars in Azizabad area of Shindand district, Mr Husseinzada said. “Then they drove in an unknown direction. Since then we’ve not heard of them,” he said. “Right now we’re searching for them. We’re looking into where they might have gone or if they’ve been kidnapped.”
Shindand district chief Shah Alam told AFP that police had launched “a massive search operation in the whole district”.
Meanwhile, Gunmen ambushed a convoy in northern Afghanistan, killing eight policemen and four civilians, while a Taliban attack in the south left 13 others dead, three of them guards, officials said.
The policemen were ambushed while travelling with four civilians by minibus in Badakshan, provincial police chief Gen Aqa Noor Kendoz said. All 12 were killed. “We don’t know who did this. We are investigating,” he said.
Mr Kendoz said personal enmity seemed unlikely and the attack could have been carried out by insurgents, including Taliban fighters.—AFP
